The Letters Of Katherine Mansfield Volume II

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Gift of
YALE UNIVERSITY

With the aid of the

ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION

1949

The Letters of Katherine Mansfield

VOLUME TWO

The Works of
Katherine Mansfield

BLISS

THE GARDEN PARTY
THE DOVE'S NEST
THE LITTLE GIRL

POEMS
IN A GERMAN PENSION

Edited by
J. Middlcton Murry

JOURNAL
OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD

THE LETTERS
OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD

THE

Letters of
Katherine
Man sfi e Id

Edited by

J. Middleton Murry

VOLUME II

Alfred* A* Knopf
Ne iv York I g 2 g

Copyright 1929 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE
THIS BOOK OR PARTS THEREOF IN ANY FORM

Published February, 1929
Second Printing July, 1929

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE LETTERS
OF KATHERINE MANSFIELD

To Richard Murry January 1920

I owe you letters, thanks I'm in your debt all round and you
must be thinking I am an ungrateful creature to say the very
least of it. But I feel as though I've been on a voyage lately on
the high seas out of sight of land, and though some albatross
post has brought your news under it's wing I've never been able
to detain the bird long enough to send an answer back. Forgive
me.

The little book is a rare find. I've not only read every word and
stared the pictures (especially the crocodile and the little lamb
who doth skip and play, always merry, always gay) out of coun-
tenance. I've begun a queer story on the strength of it about a
child who learnt reading from this little primer 1 Merciful
Heavens! think of all the little heads bowed over these tiny pages,
all the little hands tracing the letters and think of the rooms
in which they sat and the leaping light they read by, half can-
dle light, half fire and how terribly frightened they must have
been as they read about this Awful God waiting to pop them into
Eternal Flames to consume them utterly and wither them like
grass. . . . Did you read the poems? And did your eye fasten
upon Mr. John Rogers, the first martyr in Queen Mary's Reign,
laughing, really rather callously, as he burned away in sight of his
wife and Nine Small Children? They certainly were peculiarly
hideous children and his wife looks as though she had wasted
his substance upon buying hats, but all the same it's a bit steep
to show your feelings as he is doing.

I am working very hard just now I can't walk about or go
out. Nearly all my days are spent in bed or if not in bed on a little
sofa that always feels like lying in a railway carriage a horrid

1 A little seventeenth century book with woodcuts, of which I forget the title.

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Letters 1920

little sofa. I have seen hardly any people at all since I've been here
nobody to talk to The one great talker is the sea. It never is
quiet; one feels sometimes as if one were a shell filled with a
hollow sound. God forbid that another should ever live the life
I have known here and yet there are moments you know, old Boy,
when after a dark day there comes a sunset such a glowing
gorgeous marvellous sky that one forgets all in the beauty of it
these are the moments when I am really writing Whatever
happens I have had these blissful, perfect moments and they are
worth living for. I thought, when I left England, I could not love
writing more than I did, but now I feel I've never known what it
is to be a writer until I came here

To ]. M. Murry January 7920

. . . Ever since you left you have carried the sun in your pocket.
It's bitter cold, raining fast, sleeting, and an east wind. D. says
he has never known the glass so low. The cold is intense. One's
fingers ache. You could not believe this was the same place. And
the sky seems to have great inkstains upon it. ...

The post office has struck no one knows for how long. It just
announces a strike. The country is in a queer state. Yesterday on
his way here D. met the men from the railway below who shouted
" You'd better pack up your traps and go. We don't want any
more of you English here. We're going to clear you out." But 10-1
that is an exaggeration. He is an alarmist of the very first water
and sat here yesterday suggesting that even at 3 o'clock in the after-
noon no one could hear my screams if I were attacked, and that
a revolver for a person like me was ridiculous. They'd knock it
away in no time. I have come to the conclusion that he's not only
a real insane lunatic but a homicidal maniac. I thought the first
time he was here he was a trifle insane, but then you liked him so
and I felt that you would laugh at me for always " suspecting "
people. . . . But I know I'm right. His glance, without any bar-
riers, cruel, cruel like a man raving with delight at the sight of
a torture ; his flat-sounding voice, somehow so repressed and held
back; his physical great stiffness and the shape of his flat head
real criminal shape. See him in profile, his eyes glittering. He's

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a terrible object. He is attracted to me because he realises my
sensitiveness. I'm weak for him to terrify. It relieves him to
sit in that small room and suggest that navvies will break in and
" slit your throat " while L. M. is in San Remo. Well . . .
Well

The new maid is here. If to be a maid is to drop the stove-rings
on to the tiled floor, she's an excellent one, and very cheap at 5
francs a day. . . .

If only this black weather would lift. The wind howls. All
goes well here. I worl^ and work^ and wort^ and stay in bed until
the sun returns.

To Miss Fullerton Wednesday

January 14, 7920

Your letter has made me spring so high that 30 francs a day is
mountain peaks below ! I do not know how I am to thank Cousin
Connie and you for this letter. Will you please believe that large
warm beams of gratitude are coming out of this letter and that the
inkpot is flashing and stars are dropping off the pen.

But seriously thank you from my heart! The Hermitage
sounds the very place for me and Ida is quite content to go to the
Pension Anglaise. I know I shall be able to earn the extra money
to keep us both quite easily in such surroundings. Besides, I shall
get well at such a rate that they will turn me out for a fraud by
the time April is over.

Could they take us soon? Ida is going in to San Remo to-day
to see about our passports and so on and I wondered whether, if
we can get a car, they would be ready for us to-day week (next
Wednesday). Or is that too soon? We shall prepare ourselves for
Wednesday, and then if we must wait a few days it will not mat-
ter. I should like if possible to take the rooms for a month to be-
gin with, tho' I am sure I shall stay longer.

I keep re-reading your letter as I write. My dear, what trouble
you have taken and how soon you have answered. I had marked
Friday in my diary as the day I could " perhaps " hear.

I told the doctor man that I wanted very much to leave here
and he said that I must there were no two opinions. My lungs

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Letters 7920

are much better and my heart is only temporary caused, he says,
by the fever and "acute nervous strain." But that will vanish
away as soon as the solitary confinement is over.

Wednesday

To J. M. Murry L'Hcrmitage, Mentone

January 21, 7920

... I have escaped. Do you know what that means? There
has been a postal strike in Italy. No letters, no wires. Nothing
comes through. A strike of the railways, and now from to-day
a strike of automobiles. We just got through by taking a round-
about route and escaping the police. . . .

I have got away from that hell of isolation, from the awful
singing at night, from the loneliness and fright. To tell you the
truth, I think I have been mad, but really, medically mad. A great
awful cloud has been on me. . . . It's nearly killed me. Yes.
When J. took me in her arms to-day she cried as well as I. I felt
as though Fd been through some awful deathly strain, and just
survived been rescued from drowning or something like that.
You can't understand, it's not possible you should, what that
isolation was when you left again and I again was ill. . . .

If I don't get well here, I'll never get well. Here after the
journey was this room waiting for me exquisite, large, with
four windows, overlooking great gardens and mountains, won-
derful flowers tea with toast and honey and butter a charm-
ing maid and these two dear sweet women to welcome me
with papers, books, etc. This is really a superb place in every way.
Two doctors live here. . . . The cleanliness is almost supernatural.
One feels like a butterfly. One only wants to fan one's wings, on
the couch, the chairs. I have a big writing table with a cut-glass
inkstand, a waste-paper basket, a great bowl of violets and your
own anemones and wall-flowers in it. The directress is a very
nice Frenchwoman only too anxious to look after me and see that
there is no change in anything. . . . There is also a sort of Swiss
nurse in white who has just been in and says she answers the
bell at night. She is so good to look at that I shall have to ring.

I've got away from under that ghastly cloud. All is absolutely
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changed. I'm here with people, with care. I feel a different crea-
ture really different eyes, different hair. The garden is gorgeous.
There is a big shelter, chauffed. What do you think of that ?

8.30 A.M.
January 22, 1920

... I have had such a gorgeous night in this huge room, with
stars coming through the west and south windows and little airs.
At eight arrived the breakfast. I really hope this place is showing
off a little and this present behaviour is abnormal. If it isn't, pray
see that our new house has folding doors, wide staircases. Nothing
else will contain me. Oh, blankets and sheets of such rare quality
blankets that feel like lambs sheets glaces. Electric lamp by
the bedside under a small gold shade great pot of hot water
muffled in a real soft thick bath-towel. All these things are act-
ing with such effect upon the infant mind of your girl, and a west
view of mountains covered with little pines and a south view of
distant sea and olive groves (as seen from 2 marble balconies)
that she feels almost intoxicated.

Getting away yesterday was really pretty awful. Ma'am Littardi
arrived asking 50 lire for the hire of the stove ; the youth who has
been sleeping arrived asking for 5 lire a night (8 nights) and the
laundry arrived with a bill for 57 lire. . . . The taxi fare was
6, and he demanded 25 francs for having seen us through the
police at Vintimille. I don't care. I'm still alive and I'm away. But
the comble was that the day before yesterday when I was gone
upstairs to fetch the revolver two beggars came and rang. The
door was open. So I came down as quick as I could. But they'd
gone and were at the foot of the steps an old man and an old
woman with a bundle. I saw them get into a small mule cart and
drive away. At n P.M. that night I asked L. M. to fetch my over-
coat as I wanted to sew on a button. It was gone, with the green
scarf the woolly. What do you think of that? Italy, my Italy!

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Letters 7920

Sunday
January 25, 1920

. . . C. came in yesterday to see me, carrying a baby Pekinese.
Have you even seen a really baby one about the size of a fur
glove, covered with pale gold down, with paws like minute seal
flappers, very large impudent eyes and ears like fried potatoes?
Good God! What creatures they are. This one is a perfect com-
plement to Wing. We MUST have one. They are not in the least
fussy or pampered or spoilt. They are like fairy animals. This one
sat on my lap, cleaned both my hands really very carefully, polished
the nails, then bit off carefully each finger and thumb, and then
exhausted and blown with 8 fingers and two thumbs inside him,
gave a great sigh and crossed his front paws and listened to the
conversation. He lives on beef-steaks and loaf-sugar. His partner
in life, when he is at home, is a pale blue satin bedroom slipper.
Please let us have one at The Heron. . . .

I went down yesterday for lunch and dinner. I am here on false
pretences. I am the only healthy creature here. When I entered the
salle a manger I felt that all the heads were raised and all the noses
sniffed a frampold rampant lion entering. It's not that these peo-
ple are ///. They look exactly as though they were risen from the
dead, stepped out of coffins and eating again pour la premiere fois.
Their hair is thin and weak and poor; their eyes are cold and
startled, theii hands are still waxen and THIN ! They are walking-
sticks. All the little arts and allurements they have shed and
not yet picked up again. They are still sexless, and blow their
noses in a neuter fashion neither male nor female blows. At
the tables there are the signs and tokens of their illnesses bot-
tles, boxes. One woman gave me a nasty knock. She had a rechaud
beside her a lamp and a stand and she re-heated everything,
even the plates. There, but for the grace of God, went Wig. The
waitresses of course thrive in this atmosphere. They are two pretty
full-bosomed girls, with spider-web stockings, shoes laced up their
legs, little delicate wispy aprons, powered necks, red lips, scent
and they move like ballet-dancers, sliding and gliding in the
fullness of their youth and strength over the polished floors. All
this amuses me very much. . . .

Never again shall I cut myself off from Life again. I haven't
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any illusions, darling. I know all about it and am not really a baby
saying " a-gooh-a-gah ! " but, in spite of everything, I know il y a
quelquechose . . , that I feed on, exult in, and adore. One must
be, if one is a Wig, eternally giving and receiving and shedding
and renewing and examining and trying to place. According to
you, I suppose, my thinking is an infant affair with bead frames
and coloured blocks well, it's not important. What is important
is that I shall go up in flame if I do not show you these cornflowers
and jonquils. [There is a little drawing of a pot of them.]

The day is cloudy, but it doesn't matter. Landscape is lovely in
this light; it's not like the sea. The mimosa great puffs of mi-
mosa and great trees of red roses and oranges bright and flashing.
Some boys are being drilled outside. The sergeant-major keeps on
saying: "T'ois cinquante, n'est-ce pas? " and there is a most for-
lorn bugle.

Here is a story my little femme de chambrc told me. Please
read it.

" Do you know, Madame, quc les fleurs sont trop fortes to be
left dans la chambre pendant la nuit et surtout les joncs. If I put
them sur le balcon n'est-ce pas ? and bring them in early in
the morning? Vous sa vez quand ma petite mere etait tres
juene, elle etait las maitresse d'une petite ecole pour les tout petits
enf ants. Et sur son jour de fete les bebes lui ont apporte un bouquet
enorme, grand comme un chou, rond comme $a, Madame de
ces joncs. Elle les a mis dans sa chambre a coucher. C'etait un ven-
dredi. Le soir elle s'est endormie et puis, tout le samedi, le di-
manche, jusqu'au lundi matin, elle dort profondement. Quand les
petits eleves sont arrives le lundi, la porte etait fermee. Us ont
frappe. Pas de response. Enfin, mon pere, qui n'etait mon pere a
ce temps-la, alors est venu du village et il a force la porte et
voila ma mere, qui n'etait pas ma mere ni meme mariee a ce temps-
la; toujours dans un sommeil profond, el 1'air etait charge de la
parfum de ces joncs qu'elle a mis sur une petite table pres du
lit "

Don't you like that story? Do you see the infants looking in
with their fingers in their mouths, and the young man finding her
blanche comme une bougie, and the room and the flowers? It's a
bit sentimental, p'raps, but I love it. I see such funny little worms
with satchels and socks and large tarn o'shanters.

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To Mrs. Sylvia Lynd January j/, 7920

I can't tell you how pleased I was to get your letter how sorry
to know that you've been so ill. You're better now ? It's a cursed
thing to have. I had an attack once ten years ago above a
grocer's shop in Rottingdean; no more than ten years ago or less,
the year our great Edward the Peace Maker died. He died when
I was in the very thick of it. But it's an absolute mistake that you
should be ill. You're not at all the person to be ill. I always see
you in my mind's eye sitting up and laughing, but sitting up in
a way that few people have any idea of delightfully.

Look here! I'm coming back to England in May for a few
months at least. Let us meet. Let us arrange it now. Will you come
and spend the whole day ? That is not half big enough, but my
plans are so vague. I don't know where we shall be living. J. seems
to be either camping in a waste-paper basket at Adelphi Terrace,
or walking the country looking for a real country house far from
station, church and post-office. But I don't want to miss you, so

spare a day for me. I'll look for the review of . I did it badly

very badly. The trouble with the book is it's over-ripe. It's hung
in the warm library too long; it's gone soft. But that's the trouble
with that whole set of people and with all their ideas, I think.
One gets rather savage living in a little isolated villa on a wild
hillside and thinking about those things. All this self-examination,
this fastidious probing, this hovering on the brink it's all wrong!
I don't believe a writer can ever do anything worth doing until
he has in the profoundest sense of the word accepted life.
Then he can face the problem and begin to question, but not be-
fore. But these people won't accept life; they'll only accept a point
of view or something like that. I wish one could let them go, but
they go on writing novels and Life goes on big, expensive;
so poor little K. M. goes on lifting up her voice and weeping
but she doesn't want to!

I've left Italy (Italy is a thoroughly bad place at present), and
as you see, I'm in France. It's lovely weather warm, mild. The
air smells of faint, far-off tangerines with just a touch of nutmeg.
On my table there are cornflowers and jonquils and rosemary
sprigs. Here they are for you. The flowers are wonderful. How
lovely the earth is. Do you know that I had fifteen cinerarias in

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Italy, and they grew against the sea? I hope one will be able to
call these things up on one's Death-bed.

This is not a letter. It's only to say I have yours which arrived
to-day. It's only to greet you and to send my love and to beg you
to get better quickly. All those things! Good-night.

To Richard Murry February 7920

Here is a letter with an Ominous drawing of yourself in Aids to
Eyesight. I hope you won't have to wear them, You have as you
doubtless know, beautiful eyes, very rare, expressive, original and
seldom seen eyes, the kind of eyes you might imagine a person
having if he'd been born at sea while his wise parents cruised about
among the Pacific islands and had spent the first days of his
natural little life wondering what all that blue was. However, if
you do have to have 'em glassed and framed so do I. Mine or
rather one of mine is not at all the orb it used to be. I'm going to
wear horn specs " those of the largest kind " for working in. What
a trio we shall present at the Heron. Pray make a drawing of us

surprised at our labours and suddenly all at various windows
looking out to see who that is coming up the flagged walk three
faces at three windows six prodigious eyes! Whoever it was
faints among the pink peonies. . . .

Yesterday, no the day before, I received a copy of ]e ne Parle pas.
I want to thank you for having printed it so beautifully. It makes
me very happy to see your name on the back page. My share
doesn't satisfy me at all, but yours fills me with pride. I hope a
little handful of people buys it, for the sake of covering the expense.
The page you send me of Cinnamon and Angelica looks very
well. Are you going to make a map for the frontispiece with the
arms of C. and A. very fairly drawn ? Or a tiny, tiny Durer-like
drawing of Apricia, with a great flowery branch in the foreground

you know the kind of things I mean ? It is somehow most right
that you should draw. When I come back you'll shew me your
sketches? Another quite small insignificant little half-hour job
for you is a stone carving for the garden of the Heron, something
that will abide for ever with somewhere about it our names in
beautiful lettering saying we lived and worked here.

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I am out of Italy, as you see, and in France. I shall stay here until
the end of April if I can manage it. That Italian villa got pretty
dreadful and yet, now the time there is over, I wouldn't have it
otherwise. I found out more about " writing." " Here " is a room
with the window opening on to a balcony and below the balcony
there is a small tree full of tangerines and beyond the tree a palm
and beyond the palm a long garden with a great tangled it looks
like a wood at the bottom of it. Palms, Richard, are superb
things. Their colour is amazing. Sometimes they are bronze, some-
times gold and green, warm deep tiger-gold and last night,
under the moon in a little window, they were bright silver. And
plus that, the creatures are full of drawing. How marvellous life
is, if only one gives oneself up to it! It seems to me that the secret
of life is to accept life. Question it as much as you like after, but
first accept it. People to-day stand on the outskirts of the city
wondering if they are for or against Life is Life worth living
dare they risk it what is Life do they hate or love it but
these cursed questions keep them on the outskirts of the city for
ever. It's only by risking losing yourself, giving yourself up to
Life, that you can ever find out the answer. Don't think I'm senti-
mental. You know and I know how much evil there is, but all the
same let's live to the very uttermost let's live all our lives. People
to-day are simply cursed by what I call the personal. . . . What
is happening to ME. Look at ME. This is what has been done to
ME. It's just as though you tried to run and all the while an
enormous black serpent fastened on to you. You are the only
young artist I know. I long for you to be rich really rich. Am
I a dull little dog? Forgive me. I am working awfully hard and
that always makes me realise again what a terrific thing it is
our job.

To /. M. Murry February 1920

. . . You've sold my book. 1 Do you mind asking them to send
the cheque to me ? Pure childishness. But I want to see it with my
own eyes and send it with my own hands to Kay. I feel the Bank
will close. ... Re the matter of the book I Suppose I shall
have final say. I couldn't have The Woman at the Store reprinted,

1 Bliss and other Stories.

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par example. If it's left to C. or if C. has a say, it would be bad.
... I do want the story called Second Helping that I'm at now
to be included. . . .

Another change in the near future. I have not mentioned it, but
this place is intolerably noisy. I am so sensitive to noise, oh, so sen-
sitive. It hurts me, really. They bang my door, other doors, shout,
shriek, crash. I can't endure it and really can't work or sleep. The
doctor suggested une forte dose de veronal. Merci. But really it's
bad. I just mentioned this to J. She came one day when I was feel-
ing it a bit badly. To-day she arrived with a carriage and fur rugs
and silk cushions. Took me to their villa. It is really superb, ex-
quisite outside and in. They had a chaise longue in the garden
a tiny tray with black coffee out of a silver pot, Grand Marnier,
cigarettes, little bunch of violets, all ready. Then we went in to
tea. Their villa is really it's a dream. I mean even the furnish-
ing is perfect Spanish silk bed coverlets, Italian china, the tea
appointments perfect, stillness, maids in tiny muslin aprons flit-
ting over carpets . . . and so on. Then they showed me into a
room, grey and silver, facing south, with a balcony the only
touch of colour a little rose brocade couch with gilt legs and J.
said, " Now, my dear, we want you to come here, and live here.
It's dead quiet. You can be alone all day if you like. There is the
garden. We are here . . . We want you here until May. You're
going to get well. You can't afford to fight or see ugly people or
have ugly trays." And then she laughed and said, " The Lord has
delivered you into our hands, and please God we'll cure you.''
What do you think of that? . . . Why should they do that?
Why should J. say, " Then I'll be at rest about you, darling. I shall
know you're safe"? It's as though my Mother were here again.
I miss her so. I often long to lean against Mother and know she
understands things . . . that can't be told . . . that would fade
at a breath . . . delicate needs ... a feeling of fineness and gen-
tleness. But what Mother hadn't is an understanding of WORK.
The villa is very large a huge hall lighted from above. It has
delicate balconies, and a tower. I want you to see it. I can't make
you see it. I want you to see the garden and the potting-shed where
I can walk and look at the little plants. Huge springing palms
great branches of orange against the sky. [A drawing of one.]
No, I can't draw them. . . .

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... I cannot have the German Pension reprinted under any
circumstances. It is far too immature, and I don't even acknowl-
edge it to-day. I mean I don't " hold " by it. I can't go foisting
that kind of stuff on the public. It's not good enough. But if you'll
send me the note that refers to it I will reply and offer a new book
by May ist. But I could not for a moment entertain republishing
the Pension. It's positively juvenile; and besides that, it's not
what I mean; it's a lie. Oh no, never.

February 1920

Very well, Isabel, about the Pension. But I must write an
introduction saying it is early, early work, or just that it was writ-
ten between certain years, because you know, Betsy, it's nothing
to be proud of. If you didn't advise me I should drop it over-
board. But, of course, I'll do the other thing, and certainly it airs
one's name. But why isn't it better ? It makes me simply hang my
head. I'll have to forge ahead and get another decent one written;
that's all. . . .

I've told the people here I'm leaving. It was awful. How I hate
having to do this, especially as they have been so immoderately
kind. They make such a dreadful fuss of me everybody, down
to the servants. Even the masseuse says: "It was so wonderful
just to come into the room, and then we all say we know Mrs.
Murry's room by the good smell outside the door cigarettes and
flowers." As to Armand oh, it's been dreadful. These people are
so queer. Just because the room is arranged as we arrange a room,
and gay, and I wear my little coats and caps in bed, it seems to
them amazing. It's not in the least.

Villa "Flora, Mentone
Wednesday

February 25, 7920

... It is raining here, but such lovely rain ! The drops hang on
the rose bushes and on every tip of the palm fronds. Little birds
sing; the sea sounds solemn and full and silver gulls fly over. I can
smell the earth and I can feel how the violets are growing and all
the small things down there under my window. It is exquisite.

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Talking about flowers, you know Gentlemen's Buttonholes?
(A double daisy, small.) They grow here in every conceivable
colour, and massed together they really are a superb sight. I am
sure Sutton would have them. We must remember to grow them
so in our garden, in a round bed. Country Life, of course, makes
it almost impossible to wait for a garden. When one reads the
collection of flowery shrubs, par exemple mock orange (you
remember that ? It was at Mylor), four kinds of flowering quinces,
Mexican fuchsia. . . . Oh dear me! And then the annuals that,
sown in January and February, are flowering in Avrilo there
are at least 24 kinds and if you are clever you can grow them
so that one kind marches up with banners after the other until the
chrysanthemum is there. I think I shall become a very violent
gardener. I shall have shelves of tomes and walk about the house
whispering the names of flowers. We must have a tiny potting
shed, too, just big enough for you and me. I see as I write little
small forked sticks with labels on them. Daphne grows in Eng-
land: Eden Phillpotts has a great bush. I shall write for a cutting.
I read in Country Life of a most excellent apple called " Tom
Putts " silly name, but it seems to be a very fine fruit and the
trees bear in their second year. Country Life intoxicates me
the advertisements and the pictures and the way they harp on
hardy annuals. We must have a boy for heavy work, but I want
to do a fearful lot myself large gloves again and very short
corduroy velveteen skirt Buff Orpington colour. Now I must
lay down my trowel. . . .

To Richard Murry February 7920

Yes I did get your letter written to a place called Hermitage,
very much called Hermitage, where Russian children stamped
overhead and Roumanians roared below and French infants
rushed at you in the lift. After Italy it seemed all right at first
but then they began feeding us on haricot beans and I hate haricot
beans. They have no imagination. What with that and the noise
I turned against it and my Cousin who has taken this villa for le
saison asked me here. Here is about as perfect as it could be. A
great garden, lemon and orange groves, palms, violets in blue car-
pets, mimosa trees and inside a very beautiful "exquisite"

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house with a spirit in it which makes you feel that nothing evil
or ugly could ever come near. It's full of life and gaiety but the
people are at peace you know what I mean ? They've got a real
background to their lives, and they realise that other people have
too. I am basking here until I come back, some time in May.

Mentone is a lovely little town, small and unreal like all these
places are, but even here there are real spots. The colour and
movement everywhere make you continually happy. It's all ruled
by the sun; the sun is King and Queen and Prime Minister, and
people wear hats like this: [A drawing] I mustn't bring one back
for J. or you, but they are very tempting!

I'm not ill any more. Really I'm not. Please think of me as a
comfortable cross between a lion and a lamb.

I wish you had a quiet spot where you could draw in peace.
But your room at the Heron will be your studio. It's such a waste
of life to bark and bite like people do: I think we ought just to
ignore them and go our way.

It's no good getting mixed up in " sets " or cliques or quarrels.
That is not our job. By their wor\s ye shall kjiow them is our
motto. And life is so short and there is such a tremendous lot to
do and see: we shall never have time for all. I wish we could
find the house, don't you ? I don't think J. will find it before I'm
back (that's in 9 weeks time) but there will be a lot to do when
it is found. It's just going to be the perfect place for us all our
real home. You must be down in all your spare time and when
you're in London you must always have the feeling it's there,
with the smoke going out of its chimneys and the hens laying
eggs and the bees burrowing in the flowers. I feel we must keep
bees, a cow, fowls, 2 turkeys, some Indian runner ducks, a goat,
and perhaps one thoroughly striking beast like a unicorn or a
dragon. I am always learning odd things such as how to light
a scientific bonfire but now you're laughing at me. However,
just come and see my bonfire one of these days, and you will turn
up your eyes in admiration.

In the Hermitage letter you asked me what were my views
about Adam in this great swinging garden. Now that's awfully
difficult to answer. For this reason. I can't help seeing all the evil
and pain in the world: it must be faced and recognised, and
I can't bear your sentimentalist or silly optimist. I know it all:

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I feel it all. And there is cruelty for instance cruelty to children

how are you going to explain that ? and, as you say, the beauty

yes, the beauty that lurks in ugliness, that is even outside the
pub in the gesture of the drinking woman. I can't explain it. I
wish I could believe in a God. I can't. Science seems to make it
/^possible. And if you are to believe in a God it must be a good
God and no good God could allow his children to suffer so.
No, Life is a mystery to me. It is made up of Love and pains.
One loves and one suffers, one suffers and one has to love. I feel
(for myself individually) that I want to live by the spirit of
Love love all things. See into things so deeply and truly that
one loves. That does not rule out hate, far from it. I mean it
doesn't rule out anger. But I confess I only feel that I am doing
right when I am living by love. I don't mean a personal love
you know but the big thing. Why should one love ? No
reason; it's just a mystery. But it is like light. I can only truly
see things in its rays. That is vague enough, isn't it? I do think
one must (we must) have some big thing to live by, and one rea-
son for the great poverty of Art to-day is that artists have got
no religion and they are, in the words of the Bible, sheep without
a shepherd. . . . We are priests after all. I fail and waver and
faint by the way, but my faith is this queer Love. One can't
drift, and everybody nearly is drifting nowadays don't you
feel that ?

To J. M. Murry February 7920

It's the most divine spring summer weather very hot.
This is the kind of thing that happens at 1.30. A big car arrives.
We go in from our coffee and liqueurs on the balcony. May is
waiting to dress me I wear " somebody's " coat " anybody's "
we get in, there are rugs, cushions, hassocks, and yesterday the
tea basket, and away we go. Yesterday we went to La Turbie
(I can't spell it and am ashamed to ask). It's up, up high, high
on the tops of mountains. It's a tiny, ancient Roman town, in-
credibly ancient! with old bits with pillars and capitals Oh,
dear it is so lovely. The road winds and winds to get there round
and round the mountains. I kept seeing it all, for you wishing
for you longing for you. The rosemary is in flower (our plant

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it is). The almond trees, pink and white; there are wild cherry
trees and the prickly pear white among the olives. Apple trees
are just in their first rose and white white hyacinths and violets
are tumbled out of Flora's wicker ark and are everywhere. And
over everything, like a light, are the lemon and orange trees grow-
ing. If I saw the house which was ours, I saw twenty. I know we
never shall live in such houses, but still they are ours little
houses with terraces and a verandah with bean fields in bloom
with a bright scatter of anemones all over the gardens. When we
reached the mountain tops we got out and lay on the grass, look-
ing down, down into the valleys and over Monaco which is,
if anything in this world is, Cinnamon's capital. The palace,
seen from so high with its tufts of plumy trees the harbour
basin with his yacht and a sail-boat and a minute pinnace. An-
gelica's chemises were hanging out to dry in a royal courtyard.
I saw them through the glasses. The hedge sparrow and cushions
and rugs for her the American whose name is D. lay flat on
her back smoking }., never still for a moment, roamed about
and one heard her singing. She couldn't keep still and C. (of
course) unpacked the tea basket and fed us all and poured cream
down us and then gave away the cakes to two funny little moun-
tain children who watched us from behind a rock. We stayed
there about 2 hours and then dropped down by another road to
Monte the light and the shadow was divided on the hills, but
the sun was still in the air, all the time the sea very rosy with
a pale big moon over by Bordighera. We got home by 6.30 and
there was my fire, the bed turned down hot milk May wait-
ing to take off all my things. " Did you enjoy it, Madam? " Can
you imagine such a coming back to Life ?

February 7920

Yesterday it being mid-summer Mrs. D. drove me in a ker-
ridge and pair to Monte Carlo. I take back my words about the
Riviera not being what it is made out to be. // is and more. It was
the most marvellous afternoon. We drove towards the sun up hill
down dale, through mountain roads, through lemon and orange
groves little children throwing bouquets of violets and hya-
cinths into the carriage past the sea, under huge mountains

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and the FLOWERS. Of course, it is all quite artificial: there's no
imagination in it any where. Monte is real Hell. To begin with
it's the cleanest, most polished place I've ever seen. The villas are
huge and they have strange malignant towers. Immense poppies
sprout out of the halls and roses and geraniums hang down like
carpets. All the shops are magasins de luxe, lingerie, perfumes,
fat unguents and pawnbrokers and patisserie. The Rooms are
the devil's headquarters. The blinds are down, there's a whitish
glare from the electric light inside carpet on the outside steps
up and down which pass a continual procession of whores,
pimps, governesses in thread gloves Jews old, old hags, an-
cient men stiff and greyish, panting as they climb, rich great fat
capitalists, little girls tricked out to look like babies and below
the Room a huge outside cafe the famous Cafe de Paris with
real devils with tails under their aprons cursing each other as
they hand the drinks. There at those tables, sit the damned. The
gardens if you could see them the gardens in Hell. Light,
bright delicate grass grown in half a night, trembling little pansies,
grown in tiny beds, that are nourished on the flesh of babies
little fountains that spray up into the air all diamonds Oh,
I could write about it for ever. We came back through pine forests,
past Cap Martin and then at the edge of the brimming sea. I've
never heard of Monte before never dreamed there was such
a place. Now I want to go to the Rooms and see it all. It's dreadful,
but it's fascinating to me. We stopped the carriage outside the
cafe and waited for about five minutes. I thought of the Heron and
Our life and I thought how strange it was that at the Heron
I should no doubt write a story about that woman over there,
that ancient long-nosed whore with a bag made of ostrich feathers.
... I wonder if you'd like to see such a thing, would you? I
don't in the least know. Cruelty is there and vultures hover
and the devil-waiters wear queer peaked caps to hide their horns.
There is a book which we must positively not be another week
without. It is Forster's Life of Dickens. How is it that people refer
to this and have many a time and oft talked of it to me and yet
as though it was of course a very good Life, a very good Life in-
deed, about as good as you could get and immensely well worth
reading. But so dispassionately so as a matter of course. Mer-
ciful Heavens! It's one of the most absolutely fascinating books

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I have ever set eyes on. I found to-day Vol. III. in the book
shelves. Whether the other two are here or not I don't know, but
I do most solemnly assure you it is so great that it were worth
while building a house in the country and putting in fireplaces,
chairs and a table, curtains, hot wine and you and me and Richard
and whoever else we " fancy " expres for reading this. It's ravish-
ing. What will you do when you come to the description of how
his little boy aged four plays the part of hero in a helmet and
sword at their theatricals and having previously made the dragon
drunk on sherry stabs him dead, which he does in such a manner
that Thackeray falls off his chair, laughing, and rolls on the
floor. No, that's nothing. Read of his landlord M. Beaufort, read
of his home in Boulogne.

Now I am exaggerating. Since I wrote all that I finished the
book. It's not GREAT, of course, it's not; it's fascinating and it's
a bit terrible as a lesson. I never knew what killed Dickens. It was
money. He couldn't, as he grew older, resist money ; he became a
miser and disguised it under a laughing exterior. Money and
applause he died for both. How fearful that is! But still we
must have the book. We must have his complete works. . . .

Yesterday I had a wonderful afternoon. Mrs. D. took a carriage
and we (she) stopped. I bought for the house, Oh dear! the most
ravishing perfect surprises you ever did see. You'll never recover
from them. She bought some too and a dress for me, a girl's
dress, blue chiffon with a pinky fringe a summer dress. No,
I can't draw it. But I really think what I bought for the house
will bouleverse you. I paid 77 francs of the 10 you gave me, and
mean as I say to get more. This is a frightful town for shopping
glass, china, inlaid work, bits of brocade, trays. We had cham-
pagne for dinner, and J. seeing my softened mood gave me her
Missal to read. But that's no good. Who made God ?

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett March 26, 1920

If I write letters which convey my feelings so ill I ought to be
stopped. God in his infinite wisdom ought to touch my pen with
wings and make it to fly hence from me for Ever. He ought with
his Awful Breath to breathe upon the ink so that it catches on
fire and is consumed utterly.

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I've a review to write. We shall keep our big talk until the
end of Avrilo when you must come (will you?) and spend the
day and bring your slippers in a satin bag as one used to when
an infant and " invited out.". . . But why can't I give you
send you for a present this day like a pearl? There's no sun;
the sky is folded, the sea moves and that is all. It is so still, the
air is so gentle that every tiny flower seems to be a world unto
itself. I am sitting at the window and below a silent, silver coloured
cat is moving through a jungle of freezias. " There by the grace
of God, goes K. M." you know.

Don't feel bitter! We must not. Do let us ignore the people who
aren't real and live deeply, the little time we have here. It really
does seem that the world has reached a pitch of degradation
that never could have been imagined but we know it we are
not deceived. And the fact of knowing it and having suffered, each
in our own way, cannot make life the life of the universe
what we mean when we stand looking up at the stars or lie
watching the ladybird in the grass or feel talking to one we
love less marvellous. I think that we our generation ought
to live in the consciousness of this huge, solemn, exciting, mys-
terious background. It's our religion, our faith. Little creatures
that we are, we have our gesture to make which has its place in
the scheme of things. We must find what it is and make it offer
up ourselves as a sacrifice. You as a painter and me as a writer.
What is it that urges us? Why do you feel that you must make
your discovery and that I must make mine? That first because
we arc artists and the only free people we are obedient to some
law? There's the mystery! And we shall never solve it we only
know a little more about it by the time we die and that's all and
it's enough.

But just because we do feel this we can't afford to be bitter and,
oh, we mustn't let the wrong people into our Holy of Holies.

Don't think I am become an elderly fogey, I believe like any-
thing in happiness and being gay and laughing but I am sure
one can't afford to be less than one's deepest self always. That's
all I mean by renewing oneself renewing one's vows in the
contemplation of all this burning beauty. We belong to the Order
of Artists and it's a strict order but if we keep together and live to-
gether in love and harmony we'll help each other. Oh, I worship

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life. I fall on my knees before Love and Beauty. If I can only
make myself worthy. . . .

To Anne Estelle Rice March 1920

I'm leaving here April 27th and coming to England until the
fin d'octobre when I return here. I'll be in Hampstead for the
summer. . . . We must meet soon. I'm ever so much better and
can walk and talk but part of my left lung is gone and that means
my heart is not a boxer's heart and I'll never be able to climb
trees or run or swim again. Isn't that a bit steep of Almighty
God ? I'm always praising him, too, but there you are. I'm terribly
happy all the same and I don't thin\ the world has lost an athlete,
darling, do you?

The weather here is simply supreme. It's summer, hot enough
for cold chicken, un peu de salade, champagne and ice-cream,
all of which are very much here. The flowers are marvellous,
Anne. We go for picnics up among the mountains and long day
excursions by motor. We fly into Monte and buy hats for some
reason. " C'est 1'heure des chapeaux " at present and hats seem
to be flying in the air. A whiff of the Rooms gives one civilization
encore, and the bands, the gay frocks, the children pelting the car
with tiny bouquets all seem part of the spring picture. All the
flowers I share with you and the lemon groves and -orange trees.
I see little houses perched up on the high hills and dream we
are there sur la terrasse. I shall always love you like that. When
the light is lovely I think, Anne would see it, and when a funny
old man stands in the middle of the road cursing his goats it's
a drawing by Anne.

I am living here with "relations" the dearest people only
they are not artists. You know what that means ? I love them and
they've just been too good and dear to me, but they are not in
the same world we are and I pine for my own people, my own
wandering tribe.

To J. M. Murry March 7920

I am longing to be home. It is a great strain to live away from
one's own tribe, with people who, however dear they are, are
not ARTISTS. These people's minds are about 1894 not a day

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later. They still talk of such-a-pretty-book and whether one can
or can't (Oh ye Gods!) have a platonic friendship with a man
and (Oh ye Gods!) agree that you can't while the male is male
and the female female ! ! ! ! I " shock " them, but if they knew
how they shock me. They make me inclined to roll up my sleeves,
pin back my hair, lock the door and take myself and my knife
off to the dissecting room where all such idlers are shut out
for ever.

Oh, how PURE artists art how clean and faithful. Think of
Tchekhov and even J.'s talk and Anne's laughing, generous way
so remote from all this corruption. Let us remain chaste and

youthful with our work and our life and our poetry. Even

won't do, you know. One can't afford to mix with people. One
must keep clear of all the worldly world. And we can do it. I feel
our happiness will simply be without end when we are together
again.

Marc h 7920

I am all for Broomies. 1 I, too, have this idea we may retire
there and live on love when we are old. I love the little place. It's
the right size and it's remote and very simple. William and Dor-
othy might have lived there or any of our own kjnd. If we do
have money we can always make it better and better but I am
greatly desirous of our owning it (bad English). I think it's us.
We can leave it to Richard. It seems to me nicer than anything
else. I see it under the stars so quiet its thorn hedges spangled
with moonlight our pony cropping my dear love at the win-
dow telling me how fine the night is. Please let us decide on it
if you agree. I want it with all my heart.

April i, 7920

An awful thing happened here yesterday. Just a week ago a
young woman was seen wandering about under the trees at Cap
Martin and crying all day. Nobody spoke to her. At dusk a little
boy heard her crying for help. She was in the sea about fifteen
feet from land. By the time he had told somebody it was dark

1 A cottage on a Sussex common, which we bought but never entered.

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and she had disappeared. Her purse and jacket were on the beach.
She had a return ticket to Nice five francs and a handkerchief
in it that was all. Yesterday the sea washed her up just opposite
the Villa. She came rolling, rolling in with each wave and they
waited till she was tumbled on the beach. All her clothes were
gone except her corset. Her arms and feet were gone and her
hair was bound round and round her head and face dark brown
hair. She doesn't belong to a soul. No one claims her. I expect
they'll shovel her under to-day. Poor soul

Good Friday
April 2, 1920

I am very thankful you liked the reviews. The B book

was awful dead as a tack. These people have no life at all.
They never seem to renew themselves or to GROW. . . . The
species is now adult and undergoes no other change, until its
head-feathers turn white and fall out. . . . Awful ! ! Even if one
does not acquire any " fresh meat " one's vision of what one
possesses is constantly changing into something rich and strange,
isn't it? I feel mine is. 47 Fitzherbert Terrace, p.e., is colouring
beautifully with the years and I polish it and examine it and only
now is it ready to come out of the store room and into the un-
common light of day.

Oh my stars! How I love to think of us as workers, writers
two creatures given over to Art. Not that I place Art higher than
Love or Life. I cannot see them as things separate they minister
unto each other. And how I long for us to be established in our
home with just a few precious friends with whom we can talk
and be gay and rejoice. . . . Ecce quam bonum et quam jucun-
dum habitare jratres in unum! Sicut unguentum in capite, quod
descendit in barbam, barbam Aaron. (Now that surprised you,
didn't it?) I'm a cultivated little thing, really.

It's a cold and windy day and makes me cough. I still cough,
still walk with a stick, still have to rest nearly all the time. They
still talk about me as tho' I were the size of a thimble. So you
mustn't expect a very fierce girl and you mustn't be disappointed
if I have to go slow.

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Easter Sunday
April 4, 1920

I think it would be a famous idea to have sketches and stories. 1
I wrote one on the spot, called Daphne about a plant. I'll try
and bring a whole lot home, and you could stick them in under
noms de plume if you wanted to.

Yes, it's true about Catholics: their world is not our world
my duty is to mankind theirs is to a personal deity a really-
living KING with a flashing face who gives you rewards. I read
a panegyric by a Jesuit t'other day which did astonish me.

" God shall be our most passionate love. He shall kiss us with
the kisses of his mouth " and so on. It disgusted me. They horribly
confuse sexuality and the state of beatitude. I know really a good
deal about Catholics now. Of course, there's no doubt J. is a saint.
But she has given herself up to the whole thing. She works like
mad for the glory of God lives for his glory refers everything
to God or his saints, and in fact it is to her what Art is to us. But
it has warped her even her. I try to pretend she can see our
point of view, but when she says of ]e ne parle pas, " How could
you say her big belly ? I feel Our Lady would have disliked it so
much." Well what are you to say to that ?

April 7920

I've just got your note about Je ne parle pas. No, I certainly
won't agree to those excisions if there were 500,000,000 copies in
existence. They can keep their old ^40 and be hanged to them.
Shall I pick the eyes out of a story for ,40? I am furious with S.
No, I'll never agree. I'll supply another story but that is all. The
outline would be all blurred. It must have those sharp lines.
The Times didn't object. As to The Wind Blows, I put that in
because so many people had admired it (Yes, it's Autumn //.,
but a little different) and queer people spoke so strongly about
it I felt I must put it in. But this had better be held over till I get
back. I'll never consent. I'll take the book away first. Don't worry
about it. Just tell S. he's a fool. As to The Little Governess it was
on my list and I asked you to include it! ! (Caught out!) But don't
you worry. It will have to wait. Of course I won't consent!

1 In The Athenxum.

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April 7, 7920

I feel I was too undisciplined about my story and Constable.
I leave it to you. You're my cricket. If you agree to what they say
why then, all's well (and I DO want the money).

Our queer correspondences again. I have been steeped in Shake-
speare these last days with a note book looking up every word,
finding what are inkles and caddises. ... I nearly know the
sheep shearing scene from A Winter's Tale by heart. It's the
more bewitching scene but that's one of my favourite plays. If
I am strictly truthful I know nearly all of it almost by heart. And
I began reading the songs in Twelfth Night in bed this morning
early

Mark it Cesario, it is old and plain;

The spinsters and the knitters in the sun

And the free maids that weave their thread with bones

Do use to chant it: it is silly sooth,

And dallies with the innocence of love,

Like the old age. . . .
Clo: Are you ready, sir?

Dufe: Ay, prithee, sing. (Music)

Clo: Come away, come away, death, etc.

Oh, how that does all ravish me. I think I could listen to that
for a small eternity.

To Sydney and Violet Schiff April j, 7920

I feel that I deceived you to-day about my health and I suc-
cumbed to the awfully great temptation of deceiving myself.
Really and truly, thinking it over, I am afraid I am not well
enough to live in that darling little flat. You see there are days
when I am completely hors de combat; I can't walk a step further
than I walked to-day and I have to take horrid and extravagant
care of myself always. Sometimes I get a week when I can't move
and I am always under a doctor's care and if I do go out I'm
supposed not to breathe the dust. This sounds ridiculous; I wish
I didn't have to say it. I feel there is plenty of room to be well in
une petite appartement but there is not enough room to be ill and

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I have to provide for it. When I said I had to write for pennies I
didn't mean for the essential pennies but for all the luxuries
which are, alas! my necessities. Yes, forgive me, I was carried
away to-day and I forgot I must behave like an invalid. But when
I came in and lay down and rested I thought: you know these
things aren't for you, and you were deceiving those two dear
people. You must let them know at once.

Will you forgive me ? And thank you for a lovely day. I'm lying
here living it over and seeing in my mind's eye your garden and
hearing the torrent. And much more important than those things
delighting in the fact of having met you.

To Richard Murry April 1920

Talking about English flowers

Bring hither the pink and purple columbines

And gillyflowers,

Bring coronations and sops-in-wine,

Beloved of paramours:

Strew me the ground with the daffadowndilly

With cowslips and kingscups and loved lilies;

The pretty paunce and the chevisaunce

Shall match with the faire flower del ice

I quote from memory but that's hard to beat, don't you think ?
But I am all for feathery-topped carrots don't you love pulling
up carrots, shaking them clean and tossing them on to a heap!
And feeling the cauliflowers to see which one is ready to cut. Then
OUT comes your knife. When I was about the height of a garden
spade I spent weeks months watching a man do all these
things and wandering through canes of yellow butter beans and
smelling the spotted speckled broad bean flowers and helping to
plant Giant Edwards and White Elephants. Oh, dear, I do love
gardens! Think of little lettuces and washing radishes under the
garden tap. I'd better stop. I just saw you climb into a cherry
tree, and leaning against the trunk of the tree I saw and smelt the
sweet sticky gum. But we'll have all these things.

I bought you one of the most exquisite little boxes yesterday
I've ever seen. You know how some things belong to people. It

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stood on a shelf in the shop and said R. M. so I carried it off and
I'll bring it home.

April 7920

Please note: Seats are booked in the train, // the train goes, for
April 27th and I do hope, time and tide permitting, you will
meet me at the station will you ? Isn't it gorgeous to think we
have 6 months in front of us and what's to prevent you and me
from flitting over the heath and, while He draws and paints en-
chanted landscapes, She lies on the grass and tells him about the
lions and tigers and crocodiles and boa constrictors that she used
to feed under the palm trees at Mentone. Do you know the heron
has got beautiful blue legs? I read that the other day.

Your little drawings are most awfully nice. I'll draw you some
palms, there are so many different kinds. My favourite tree I
really think, tho', is the lemon tree, it's far more beautiful than the
orange And then the prickly pear has a lot of drawing: it's
a very queer affair and then there's the pepper tree hung of course
with pepper pots but I wish you were here to sneeze at it with
me. J. seems so very busy that he never has time to write me a real
letter. I miss them so! For the Tig you know is an animal which
removed from its native soil, however golden the cage and how-
ever kind and charming the people who hand it things through
the bars or even pat it longs for fat envelopes to eat and when
left without them she finds it an awful effort not to just creep
into a corner and pine. But it can't be helped I have asked J.
for them so often that I'm sure he'd send them if he had them
he just hasn't that's all.

Will you be quite changed when I come back? Please carry
something that I can recognize you by such as an emerald
green handkerchief printed with a design of pink shrimps or
a walking stick tied with a large bow of pale blue ribbon. No,
Heaven bless you, I shall know you anywhere and you'll know
me.

Of course I don't know how to light a fire with damp wood, damp
paper and i match. BUT please reply telling me how to as who knows
how soon I may have to do it. (Do you see the hint conveyed in these
words?)

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To /. M. Murry April 20, 1920

I am staying in bed until lunch as I had a heavy day yesterday
buying small presents to bring back and so on. Exhausting work
because one gets so frightfully excited as well. C. went with me
in the morning and bought me an antique brooch, very lovely;
three stones set in silver. Then she bought me a pastel blue muslin
frock with frills like panniers at the side. Ida, who was by, said
she thought C. had a very bad influence on me because she spoiled
me so. And the poor old dear got pink just like Granma used
to and said, " Well, the child has had no fun, no life, no chance
to wear pretty things for two years. I'm sure J. would want to do
what I'm doing. . . ." You remember in Italy how I longed to re-
turn to Life with all kinds of lovely possessions. Funny it should
have all come true. I also bought the most exquisite fruit plates
with small white grapes and gold leaves on them pour la famille
Murry, and a dish, high, to match, to take the breath. I've no
money. I think I must be a little bit mad. Oh, could I bring the
flowers, the air, the whole heavenly climate as well: this darling
little town, these mountains It is simply a small jewel Men-
tone . . . and its band in the jardins publique with the ruffled
pansy beds the white donkeys standing meek, tied to a pole,
the donkey women in black pleated dresses with flat funny hats.
All, all is so terribly attractive. I'd live years here with you. I'm
immensely attached to it all and in the summer we'd go up to
the Alpes Maritimes and live in the small spotless inns with milk
hot from the cow and eggwegs from the hen we'd live in those
steep villages of pink and white houses with the pine forests
round them where your host serves your dinner wearing a
clean white blouse and sabots. Yes, I'm in love with the Alpes
Maritimes. I don't want to go any further. I'd like to live my life
between Broomies and them.

April 26, 1920

Oh, how I agree about Shylock! I think The Taming of The
Shrew is so deadly too. I am certain Bill never wrote it: he bol-
stered up certain speeches but that is all. It's a hateful, silly play,
so barely constructed and arranged. I'd never go to see it. I think

Letters 1920

we shall have a Shakespeare festival one year at Broomies get
actors there to study their parts act out of doors a small
Festa a real one. I'll be stage director. I am dead serious about
this. Your Stratford makes me feel it. Really it's grilling hot
to-day ! I feel inclined to make a noise like a cicada.

To Sydney and Violet Schiff Sunday

2 Portland Villas, Hampstead
May 2, 1920

At last the writing table is in perfect order and I have put a
notice round the neck of the small angelic creature who is " knock
man " to my door: " Engaged." At last I'm free to sit down and
think of last Sunday and wish it were this. This is cold, reluctant,
uneasy. Now and again a handful of rain is dashed against the
window. The church bells have stopped ringing and I know that
there is a leg of something with " nice " spring greens, rhubarb
tart and custard in every house in Hampstead but mine. It's very
cold, very grey; the smoke spins out of the chimney. But thank
God there is a far-away piano, rocking, plunging, broken into
long quivering phrases it sounds as though it were being played
under the sea.

How glad I am how deeply glad that we stopped the car
on the other side of the tunnel and got out and leaned against
the wall with one broken village behind and then the falling
terraces of green. Will you ever forget how those mountains were
heaped and folded together ? And the fat comfortable man taking
a cigarette at his ease in the lap of the world and the small impu-
dent children watching us while we enjoyed our timeless mo-
ment ? I shall go on reliving that day down to the very last drop.
But so I shall with all the time we spent together.

I have been thinking about your new work. Have you done
any more? It's very good. Delicate perception is not enough; one
must find the exact way in which to convey the delicate percep-
tion. One must inhabit the other mind and know more of the
other mind and your secret knowledge is the light in which all is
steeped. I think you have done this. Do more.

M. is desperately pessimistic about everything more espe-

Letters 7920

cially he feels that the wicked writers are triumphing to such
an extent that it's nearly impossible ever to beat them. Things
have gone too far. I don't feel that at all. I think our duty lies in
ignoring them all except those whose faults are important
and in working ourselves, with all our might and main. It is
waste of time to discuss them and waste of energy. It's a kind
of treachery to all that we intend to do. I am sure the " day will
come."

It is joy to have one's room again. Everything is in its place.
The black and gold scarf lies across a little couch.

Good-bye, this is not the letter I wanted to write it's only the
fringe of it.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett May 20, 7920

The STOVE is come, installed, burning, giving out the most
blessed beneficent heat imaginable! I cannot tell you how good
it is to be in this room in a whole warm room with no smoke,
no making up fires, just a silent, discreet, never-failing heat. If I
were a savage I should pray to it and offer it the bodies of infants.
Thank you a billion times for your dear thought. And now a
belated thank you for the yellow roses which are perfection.
Now stop being generous, or I'll have to lead a baby elephant
washed in rose soap, hung with lily buds and marigolds, carry-
ing a flamingo in a cage made of mutton-fat jade on its back, to
your doorstep as a return for past favours.

To Violet Schiff August 7920

I'm much better. The " trouble " has been I've had an overdose
of vaccine and it laid me low. Ten million or twenty million
hosts of streptococci attacked and fought one another. I have
done with vaccine.

My Catholic cousins (the Villa Flora ones) have bought a new
large villa in Caravan the other bay. It has, at its gates, a doll's
house with a verandah, garden, everything complete. And this I
have taken from them. I shall be in touch with them, still, and
they are getting me a maid and so on, but at the same time I'm
free can you imagine the delight of writing to the Villa Violet,

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of telephoning to them (my Isola Bella has a telephone l ) and
asking them if they will come over ? Don't you envy me ?

By the time you come my garden will be full of flowers.
Heavens! what a joy that will be. And we shall ignore time
trick the wretch just for a little.

To Sydney and Violet Schiff Friday

August 7920

We both enjoyed immensely our evening. The play began
so splendidly and even though it did not keep it up I for
my part was so happy to be there. . . . We discussed all the way
home, a new Athenceum the idea of throwing overboard all
the learned societies and ancient men and reviews of Dull old
Tomes, and opening the windows to the hurrying sounds out-
side, and throwing all the old gang into the river. . . . After
all is it good enough to be halfway between what we really
want to do and what we don't care a pin for.

What will the Bishops and the Antiquarians say to the short
stories ? And just supposing we really told the truth about every-
thing confidently. The car rushed through St John's Wood
and we decided to do it, but not to use violence I wonder if it is
possible. . . .

I wish you could see my roses. They are so exquisite that yes-
terday I made Jones photograph them so that I should be able
to show you how they looked.

Oh, the devastating cold. I cannot keep warm and all day long
people walk up and down the stairs and just don't knock at my
door. Do you ever want to hide, Violet, to be completely hidden
so that nobody knows where you are?

Sometimes one has a dreadful feeling of exposure it's intol-
erable. I mustn't say these things.

To Violet Schiff August 7920

Forgive me for not answering before.

I had asked some people for next Sunday; I was hoping they
would refuse. But no, this morning they will be " so pleased to

1 It hadn't.

Letters 1920

come/' So M. and I regretfully cannot. I do want to see you both
soon and really tal\. It seems, I suppose it isn't really, so long since
we have had time to talk.

What I always want to do with you both is to share the event
and then to share the impressions of it the " afterwards." If
only there were more time but it seems to go faster and faster. One
is so conscious of it sometimes.

I feel as though we were trying to talk against the noise and the
speed of the train trying to hear each other trying to convey
by a look, a gesture, what we long to talk about for hours days
What a story one could write about a train journey across
strange country A party of people with the carriage to them-
selves, travelling together, and two of them who have something
they must say to each other. Can you imagine it ? the impatience,
the excitement, the extraordinary nearness of them all to one
another the meals in the restaurant car, " the new warm
plates seemed to come flying through the air" and the pre-
paring for the night those who do sleep those who don't
My God! there's such a novel to be written there; will there be
time to write it ?

Monday
August 7920

Please don't think about my health. Folkestone or Margate
(dread places) wouldn't give it me back again. No, I shall go
away in September somewhere, I don't know where pref-
erably and here one wants to throw down one's pen (no, to
lay it down, carefully and gently} and to dream of some place
where nobody says: " But one moment, if you have fish for lunch
you won't have it for dinner, will you, and I had thought of it for
breakfast to-morrow. . . . I'm not interrupting seriously. You've
not really started work yet, have you ? "

Violet: " You know I think K. M. is rather ungrateful and
exasperating."

Ah, don't think that. It's only impatience. There is so much to
write and there is so little time.

3IS

Letters 7920

August 7920

It was a joy to hear from you and you are too generous in your
criticism of my work for the paper. Nevertheless, it's immensely
stimulating to know that I gave you pleasure I often say things
expressly for you both. I am sure you know I do. This week I had
happened to read a really typical article in an imbecile " woman's
paper " and I threw my three silly novels away and wrote about
it instead. I am afraid the greater number of readers will think
I have gone mad. But Oh, they are such dull dogs sometimes and
I am ill I must be gay my heart and my cough, my dear
woman, won't let me walk up and down stairs, even, at present.
I am afraid I cannot come to you. You know how much I would
like to. And I'm not sure when I can get away to France; I'm
not " up " to the journey as they say, at present. It is very cursed;
I try not to mind; I mind terribly.

But forgive me. You have a right to be disgusted with me for
being ill I know if I ever am well and strong again I'll try
and make up for this unsatisfactory K. M.

To J. M. Murry Tuesday

Villa Isola Bella, Menton-Garavan
September 14, 7920

What shall I tell you first? I have thought of you often and
wondered if the beau temps is chez vous aussi, now that I've gone
away.

We had a good journey but a slight contretemps in Paris. Ida
disappeared with the porter to find a taxi, and she forgot the door
she'd gone out rushed off to another and lost me. After about
half an hour I appealed to the police but they were helpless. The
poor creature had lost her head and when we did meet finally
it was only because I saw her in the distance and simply shouted.
This tired me and made my nose bleed and I had a very bad night
and had to do my review in bed next day, being fanned and bathed
with eau de cologne. It's of no importance to me but I felt all
the time I was betraying you and the paper. Forgive me once again.

We arrived here yesterday at 4.50 after a day of terrible heat.
Mentone felt like home. It was really bliss to sit in the voiture and
drive through those familiar streets and then up a queer little

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leafy " way " and then another at right angles to a gate all hidden
by green where la bonne Annette stood waving her apron and
the peke leapt at her heels. This villa is so far perfect. It has
been prepared inside and out to such an extent that I don't think
it will ever need a hand's turn again. The path from the gate to the
two doors has a big silver mimosa showering across it. The garden
is twice as big as I imagined. One can live in it all day. The hall
is black and white marble. The salon is on your right as you enter
a real little salon with velvet covered furniture and an immense
dead clock and a gilt mirror and two very handsome crimson
vases which remind me of fountains filled with blood. It has two
windows : one looks over the garden gate, the others open on to
the terrace and look over the sea. I mustn't forget to mention
the carpet with a design of small beetles which covers the whole
floor. The dining room is equally charming in its way and
has French windows, too. It abounds in cupboards full of wessels
and has a vrai buffet with silver teapot, coffee and milk jug
which catch the flashing eye, all is delightful. There are even
very lovely blue glass finger bowls. . . . On the other side of the
passage is the garde-linge big enough for all our boxes as well. The
linen is overwhelming. It is all in dozens even to maid's
aprons. . . . The kitchen premises are quite shut off with a heavy
pair of doors. The kitchen gleams with copper. It's a charming
room and there's a big larder and a scullery big enough for a
workshop and outside there's a garden and three large caves and
the lapiniere. Upstairs are four bedrooms the maids on the
entresol. The others have balconies and again are carpeted all over
and sumptuous in a doll's house way.

Annette had prepared everything possible. The copper kettle
boiled. Tea was laid. In the larder were eggs in a bowl and a cut
of cheese on a leaf and butter swimming and milk, and on the
table coffee, a long bread, jam, and so on. On the buffet a dish
heaped with grapes and figs lying in the lap of fig leaves. She had
thought of everything and moreover everything had a kind of
chic and she in her blue check dress and white apron sitting
down telling the news was a most delightful spectacle.

The heat is almost as great as when we arrived last year. One
can wear nothing but a wisp of silk, two bows of pink ribbon
and a robe de mousseline. Moustiques and moucherons are in full

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blast; we are both bitten to death already. They are frightful.
But so far I can accept them without a reproach, the compensa-
tions are so great.

I must tell you a very big date palm grows outside my bedroom
balcony window. At the end of the garden wall (a yellow
crumbling wall) there is a vast magnolia full of rich buds. There
is a tap in the garden. In the vegetable garden the French arti-
chokes are ready to eat and minute yellow and green marrows. A
tangerine tree is covered in green balls.

The view is surpassingly beautiful. Late last night on the bal-
cony I stood listening to the tiny cicadas and to the frogs and to
someone playing a little chain of notes on a flute.

September 1920

Your letter and card this morning were so perfect that (only
you will understand this) I felt you'd brought up a little kitten by
Wingley and put it on our bed and we were looking at it together.
But it was a very kitten of very kittens . . . with wings. I must
answer it this once and risk breaking the agreement not to write.

Yes, that suddenness of parting that last moment But this
last time I had a deep, strange confidence, a feeling so different
to that other desperate parting when I went to France. We are
both so much stronger and we do see our way and we do know
what the future is to be. That doesn't make me miss you less,
though. . . .

I'm in bed not very O.K. The moustiques have bitten me and
I've had pains and fever and dysentery. Poisoned, I suppose. It
was almost bound to happen. But don't worry. Annette is in the
kitchen and her soups and rice climb up the stairs.

I think I've got a maid, too, Mme. Reveilly, 5bis. Rue des Poilus.
She's a police inspector's sister and she looks indeed as though
she had sprung out of a nest of comic policemen. Fat, dark,
sitting on the sofa edge, grasping, strangling indeed a small black
bead bag. " Si vous cherchez une personne de confiance Madame
et pas une imbecile . . " she began. I feel that was a poor com-
pliment to my appearance. Did I look like a person who wantonly
cherished imbeciles to do the house work ? But of course all the

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time she recounted her virtues I saw the most charming imbecile
with woolly shoes like rabbits and a great broad beaming smile
. . . whom I couldn't help dismissing rather regretfully.

The villa is even lovelier than it was. Once I am up again and
out again, I feel it will be almost too fair. I do miss you, tho'.
I have (I have told you a thousand times) always such a longing
to share all that is good with you and you alone. Remember that.
Events move so awfully strangely. We live and talk and tear our
Daily News up together and all the while there is a growth
going on a gorgeous deep-down glories like bougainvilleas
twine from your window to mine. . . .

I've begun my journal book. I want to offer it to Methuen
to be ready this Xmas. Do you think that's too long to wait?
It ought to be rather special. Dead true and by dead true I mean
like one takes a sounding (yet gay withal). Oh, it's hard to
describe. What do you advise ?

September 18, 7920

I'm longing to see your " Wilde-Harris." I am sure O. W. was
negligible but he is an astonishing figure. His letters, his mock-
eries and thefts he's a Judas who betrays himself.

. . . Which is the more tragic figure the master without a
disciple or one disciple without a master? . . . That's by the
way. Can I have the Times Lit. Sup.? I freeze, I burn for the
printed word.

Saturday. I sent my review last night. I do hope it arrives in
time. Dearest, I'm better. Temperature normal pain gone
up and lying in the salon. I am eating again too and now really
will mend. But I have never been so thin not even in Paris. I
simply melted like a candle with that fever. I rock when I stand.
But Hurrah! it's over.

Sunday afternoon
September 19, 1920

It is true - isn't it that we are going to walk out together
every single Sunday ? All through the week we are hard at work
you, in that horrible black town that I hate, me, on my beauti-
ful island; but when Sunday comes (it was my first thought this

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morning) we adorn ourselves, and soon after midi I hear that
longed for but rather peculiar, rather funny whistle. I run to the
window, I kiss my hand, spin down the stairs, and away we
go. But for this week at least we'll not go far only out of sight
of the world that's far enough. For your Wig is still so weak
that she can't walk straight sometimes I fling myself at the
doors or take a great high step in the air. But I am really on the
mend, and as to my cough fancy, I've been here five days and
I cough hardly at all. This morning in fact I didn't cough at all
and can't remember if I have until now, 6 P.M. I only have to get
my strength back after this " attack." That is all about me.

(There is so much to tell you. I tell you in my mind and then
the effort of writing is too much.)

Later

My feeling for this little house is that somehow it ought to be
ours. It is, I think, a perfect house in its way and just our size.
The position up a side road off a side road standing high
all alone the chief rooms facing South and West the garden,
the terrace all South is ideal. You could do all the garden.
There's a small vegetable plot outside the kitchen and scullery
there is a largish piece in the front full of plants and trees
with a garden tap and at the side another bed a walk a stone
terrace overlooking the sea a great magnolia tree a palm
that looks as though the dates must ripen. You shall have photo-
graphs of all this. And then it's so solid inside and so, somehow,
spacious. And all on two floors and as well all the kitchen prem-
ises away, shut away and again perfectly equipped. I shall, of
course, keep the strictest accounts and see exactly what it would
cost us to live here.

Marie, the maid, is an excellent cook as good as Annette
was. She does all the marketing, and as far as I can discover
she's a very good manager. A marvel really. Of course she cooks
with butter but then one doesn't eat butter with one's meals so it
comes to the same thing. The food is far better than any possible
house we go to in England. I don't know to whose to compare
it and all her simple dishes like vegetables or salads are so
good. It's a great pleasure to go into the kitchen for my morning

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milk and see this blithe soul back from market in the spotless
kitchen with a bunch of lemon leaves drying for tisane and a
bunch of camomile hanging for the same.

All is in exquisite order. There are pots on the stove, cooking
away mysterious pots the vegetables are in a great crock
in bundles and she tells me of her marvellous bargains as I sip
the milk. She is the kind of cook Anatole France might have.

As to the weather it is really heavenly weather. It is too hot for
any exertion, but a breeze lifts at night, and I can't tell you what
scents it brings, the smell of a full summer sea and the bay tree
in the garden and the smell of lemons. After lunch to-day we had
a sudden tremendous thunderstorm, the drops of rain were as big
as marguerite daisies the whole sky was violet. I went out
the very moment it was over the sky was all glittering with
broken light the sun a huge splash of silver. The drops were
like silver fishes hanging from the trees. I drank the rain from
the peach leaves and then pulled a shower-bath over my head.
Every violet leaf was full. I thought of you these are the things
I want you to have. Already one is conscious of the whole sky
again and the light on the water. Already one listens for the
grasshopper's fiddle, one looks for the tiny frogs on the path
one watches the lizards. ... I feel so strangely as though I were
the one who is home and you are away.

Tuesday, September 21: I dropped this letter and only to-day
I pick it up again. . . . And I still haven't told you about this
house or the life or the view or what your room is like. It all waits.
Will you just take me and it for granted for about a week? In a
week I'll be a giant refreshed but I've simply got to get back
my strength after the last blow.

But you know how soon I come to the surface. It did pull
me down. It's only a few days. It's over. I'm on the up grade, but
there you are just for the moment. Each day the house finds
its order more fixed and just (that's not English). Marie does
every single thing. I am having an awning made so that I can lie
out all day. The weather is absolute exquisite radiance, day after
day, just variegated by these vivid storms. It's very hot and the
insects are a trouble, but it's perfect weather.

I'll just have to ask you to take a wave of a lily white hand to
mean all for the moment. I wish I were stronger. I'm so much

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better. My cough is nearly gone. It's nothing but de la faiblesse
and I know it will pass. But not to be able to give you all this when
I want to that's hard to bear.

To Richard Murry September 7920

I was very glad to hear from you. The drawing of the Flight
into Mentone was really superb Athy was the spit of himself.
Yes, I think you'd find the South of France was good country.
I could be content to stay here for years. In fact I love it as I've
never loved any place but my home. The life, too, is so easy. There
is no division between one's work and one's external existence
both are of a piece. And you know what that means. My small,
pale yellow house with a mimosa tree growing in front of it
just a bit deeper yellow the garden full of plants, the terrace
with crumbling yellow pillars covered with green (lurking-place
for lizards) all belong to a picture or a story. I mean they are not
remote from one's ideal one's dream. The house faces the sea,
but to the right there is the Old Town with a small harbour
a little quai planted with pepper and plane trees. This Old Town,
which is built flat against a hill a solid wall, as it were, of
shapes and colours is the finest thing I've seen. Every time
I drive towards it it is different.

And then, there's no doubt that the people here I mean the
working people make no end of a difference. My servant Marie
is a masterpiece in her way. She's the widow of a coachman
just a woman of the people, as we say, but her feeling for life
is a constant surprise to me. The kitchen is a series of Still Lives;
the copper pans wink on the walls. When she produces a fish for
lunch it lies in a whole, tufted green seascape with a large tragic
mouthful of "persil" still in its jaws. And last night, talking
of her desire to buy bananas she explained it wasn't so much
that they should be eaten but they gave "effect" to the fruit
dish. " A fine bunch of grapes, deux poires rouges, une on deux
belles pommes avec des bananas et des feuilles" she thought
worth looking at.

You know to live with such people is an awful help. Yesterday,
par example, I had a sack of charcoal and some pine cones de-

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livered. And passing the kitchen I saw the woodman, in a blue
overall and yellow trousers, sitting at the table with Marie taking
a glass of wine. The wine bottle was one of those wicker affairs.
One doesn't (God forbid) want to make a song about these
things, but I didn't realise they went on naturally and simply
until I came here. In England one gets the feeling that all is over.
Do you know what I mean? And there's never time for more
than a rough sketch of what one wants to do, and what one feels.
I hope you don't think I'm running down your country. It's not
that. It's life in any city.

To /. M. Murry September 25, 7920

I am beginning my Sunday letter. I can't resist the hour. It's
6.30, just on sunset the sea a deep hyacinth blue, silver clouds
floating by like sails and the air smells of the pine and the bay
and of charcoal fires. Divine evening! Heavenly fair place! The
great RAIN has brought a thousand green spears up in every
corner of the garden. Oh, you'll be met by such Flowers on Parade
at Christmas time. There's a winey smell at the corner of the ter-
race where a huge fig tree drops its great purple fruits. At the
other the magnolia flashes leaves; it has great buds brushed over
with pink. Marie has just brought in my chaise longue and the
green chair which is yours to escape I'humidite du soir. ... Do
these details bore you in London ? Oh, I could go on for ever. But
I do think this place, villa, climate, maid, all are as perfect as can
be. Marie's cooking infuriates me. Why don't I help you to her
escaloppe aux tomates with real puree de p. de terre deux
feuilles de salade and des oeufs en neige. And her Black Coffee II

Sharing her return from market tho' is my delight. I go into the
kitchen and am given my glass of milk and then she suddenly
rushes into the scullery, comes back with the laden basket (pri-
vately exulting over her purchases). "Ah cet-te vie, cet-te vie.
Comme tout $a est chere, Madame! Avant la guerre notre jolie
France, c'etait un jardin de Paradis et maintenant c'est que le Presi-
dent meme n'a pas la tete sur les epaules. Allez! allez! Douze sous
pour les haricots! C'est vrai qu'ils sont frais qu'ils sont jolis, qu'ils
sont enfin enfin des haricots pour un petit Prince maiz

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douzc sous, douze sous! . . ." etc., etc. This at a great pace of
course. Does it come over ? Does it seem to you the way a cook
ought to talk? There's a mouse in the cupboard. When she
brought my bregchick this morning . . . " le p'tit Monsieur nous
a visite pendant la nuit, Madame. II a mange presque toute une
serviette. Mais pensez-vous quelles dents. Allez-allez! c'est un
maitre!! " I don't know. I won't bore you with any more of her

but it seems to me that this is the way that people like her ought
to talk.

I heard again from Methuen to-day. They now say they'd like 2
books for next spring. I think there must have been some trunk
work, some back stair work in this on your part. But I'll see what
I can do without promising in my fatal way what I can't perform.
I wish I could begin real creative work. I haven't yet. It's the at-
mosphere, the . . . tone which is hard to get. And without it
nothing is worth doing. I have such a horror of triviality ... a
great part of my Constable book is trivial. It's not good enough.
You see it's too late to beat about the bush any longer. They are
cutting down the cherry trees; the orchard is sold that is really
the atmosphere I want. Yes, the dancing and the dawn and the
Englishman in the train who said "jump!" all these, with
the background.

Speaking of something else, which is nevertheless connected
it is an awful temptation, in face of all these novels to cry " woe

woe! " I cannot conceive how writers who have lived through
our times can drop these last ten years and revert to why Edward
didn't understand, Vi's reluctance to be seduced or why a dinner
of twelve courses needs remodelling. If I did not review novels
I'd never read them. The writers (practically all of them) seem
to have no idea of what one means by continuity. It is a difficult
thing to explain. Take the old Tartar waiter in Anna who serves
Levin and Stepan Now, Tolstoy only has to touch him and he
gives out a note and this note is somehow important, persists,
is a part of the whole book. But all these other men they intro-
duce their cooks, aunts, strange gentlemen, and so on, and once
the pen is off them they are gone dropped down a hole. Can
one explain this by what you might call a covering atmosphere

Isn't that a bit too vague ? Come down O Youth from yonder

Letters 7920

Mountain height and give your Worm a staff of reason to assist
her. What it boils down /o is ..." either the man can make
his people live and keep 'em alive or he can't." But criticks better
that. . . .

September 27, 7920

I wish and I wish and I wish. Why aren't you here ? Even though
I am as poor as a mouse, don't publish Sun and Moon. I'll send
you a story this week. Do publish it if you can. Of course, don't
if you're full up. But alas for my ^25 a month it's gone. This,
however, is sheer wailing. . . .

The lizards here abound. There is one big fellow, a perfect
miniature crocodile, who lurks under the leaves over a corner of
the terrace. I watched him come forth to-day very slithy and
eat an ant. You should have seen the little jaws, the flick flick of the
tongue, the great rippling pulse just below the shoulder. His
eyes, too. He listened with them and when he couldn't find
another ant, he stamped his front paw and then, seeing that I
was watching, deliberately winked, and slithered away.

There is also a wasps' nest in the garden. Two infant wasps
came out this morning and each caught hold of a side of a leaf
and began to tug. It was a brown leaf about the size of three tea
leaves. They became furious. They whimpered, whiney-pined
snatched at each other wouldn't give way and finally one rolled
over and couldn't roll back again just lay there kicking. I never
saw such a thing. His twin then couldn't move the leaf at all. I
pointed out the hideous moral to my invisible playmate.

October i, 7920

Suppose you didn't glance at a novel by a man called Prowse,
A Gift of the Dus\. A simply terrible book awful ghastly!
and about as good as it could be. It's just a kind of ... journal
the man kept while he was at a sanatorium in Switzerland. It is
the goods if you like! But he must be a wonderful man. I wish
I knew if he is dead. Will you PLEASE ask Beresford if you see
him (Collins is the publisher) ? I wish very much I could hear

Letters 1920

of him One's heart goes out to anyone who has faced an ex-
perience as he has done. " One must tell everything everything."
That is more and more real to me each day. It is, after all, the only
treasure, the only heirloom we have to leave our own little
grain of truth.

October 4, 7920

Walpole's novel which I mean to do for next week ought to be
a very good prop to hang those very ideas on that I tried to com-
municate to you. I want to take it seriously and really say why it
fails for, of course, it does fail. But his " intention " was serious.
I hope I'll be able to say what I do mean. I am no critic of the
homely kind. " If you would only explain quietly in simple lan-
guage," as L. M. said to me yesterday. Good Heavens, that is out
of my power.

The garden menagerie includes snakes a big chap as thick
as my wrist, as long as my arm, slithered along the path this
morning and melted into the bushes. It wasn't horrid or fearful,
however. As to the mice Marie's piege seems to snap in the most
revolting way. A fat one was offered to a marauding cat at the
back door yesterday, but it refused it. " Polisson ! Tu veux un
morceau de sucre avec ? " I heard Marie scold. She is very down
on the cats here ; she says they are malgracieux. Yes, she is a most
remarkable type. Yesterday afternoon, it was terribly gloomy and
triste outside and she came in for the coffee tray, and said how she
hated Mentone. She had lived here 8 years with her pauvre mari
and then they lived 2 years in Nice where he died and was buried.
She said she could bear Nice because " il se repose la-bas mais
ici Madame il se promenait avec moi partout partout "
and then she beat her little black crepe bodice and cried " trop de
souvenirs, Madame trop de souvenirs." Oh, how I love people
who feel deeply. How restful it is to live with them even in their
" excitement." I think for writers, it is right to be with them
but the feeling must be true not a hair's breadth assumed or
I hate it as much as I love the other. As I write that I don't believe
it any more. I could live with you and not care two pins if peo-
ple " felt " anything at all in fact, I could draw away and be

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very aloof and cold if they did / don't know. It's too diffi-
cult. . . .

I feel this letter is cold and poor; the fruit is not good to eat. It's
rather like that withered fig tree. Do you know there is a kind
of fig-tree which is supposed to be of the family of that unfor-
tunate one it is dark stemmed and its leaves are black, they
flap on the blackened boughs, they are like leaves that a flame has
passed over. Terrible. I saw one once in a valley, a beautiful valley
with a river flowing through it. There was linen drying on the
banks and the women were beating the water and calling to one
another gaily and there was this sad tree. L. M. who was
with me said " of course the explanation is that one must never
cease from giving." The fig tree had no figs so Christ cursed it.
Did you ever! There's such a story buried under the whole thing
isn't there ? if only one could dig it out.

Thursday
October j, 1920

As for me I am in the open day and night. I never am in a room
with the windows shut. By great good fortune I've got Marie who
every day looks after me better. And she is so sympathetic that all
she cooks tastes especially good. She looks after me and anxiously
asks if " la viande etait assez saignante " but sanely in the
way one not only can stand, but one loves, and when I go into the
kitchen and say, " Marie, je tremble de faim " her " tant mieux "
as she butters you a tartine is just absolutely right. So you see I do
count ,my blessings; this house, this climate, and this good
soul. . . .

It's blowing guns to-day a choppy sea my favourite sea,
brilliant blue with the white lifting lifting as far as one can sec,
rather big unbroken waves near the shore. Butterflies love a day
like this. They love to fling themselves up in the air and then be
caught by the wind and rocked and flung and lightly fluttered.
They pretend to be frightened. They cling as long as they can to
a leaf and then take a butterfly long breath up they go
away they sail, quivering with joy, and delight. It must be a kind
of surf bathing for them flinging themselves down the wind.

You know how when one woman carries the new born baby

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the other woman approaches and lifts the handkerchief from the
tiny face and bends over and says " Bless it." But I am always want-
ing to lift the handkerchief off lizards' faces and pansies' faces
and the house by moonlight. I'm always waiting to put a blessing
on what I see. It's a queer feeling.

October 8, 7920

I am not in the least settled down to anything yet. The journal
I have absolutely given up. I dare not keep a journal. I should
always be longing to tell the truth. As a matter of fact, I dare
not tell the truth I feel I must not. The only way to exist is to
go on and try and lose oneself to get as far as possible away
from this moment. Once I can do that all will be well. So it's stories
or nothing. I expect I shall kick off soon perhaps to-day, who
knows ? In the meantime I peg away too, in my fashion.

October 7920

Oh, if you knew what a joy your Shakespeare was. I straightway
dipped in The Tempest and discovered Ariel riding on curled
clouds. Isn't that adjective perfect ? I'd missed it before. I do think
The Tempest is the most radiant, delicate, exquisite play. The at-
mosphere is exactly the atmosphere of an island after a storm
an island re-born out of the sea with Caliban tossed up for sea
wrack and Ariel blowing in a shell. Oh, my divine Shakespeare!!
Oh, most blessed genius. Again I read of the love of Ferdinand
and Miranda, how they met and recognised each other and their
hearts spake. Everything everything is new born and golden.
God knows there are desert islands enough to go round the
difficulty is to sail away from them but dream islands . . .
they are rare, rare.

Just as I folded that I had callers. A M. et Madame showed on
to the Terrace very gracious but OH DEAR! What a ghastly idea
it is. What can one say ? I can't play " ladies " unless I know the
children I'm playing with.

Now there's an asp come out of a hole a slender creature, red,
about twelve inches long. It lies moving its quick head. It is very

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evil looking but how much nicer than a caller. I was warned yes-
terday against attempting to kill them. (Do you see me trying
to kill them?) But they spring at you if you do. However,
I'll catch this one for you at the risk of my life and put it in your
Shakespeare for a marker at the scene where the old man carries
in the basket of figs. You will have to hold your Shakespeare very
firmly to prevent it wriggling, Anthony darling.

Lovingly yours,

EGYPT.

October 7920

I send the story. 1 As usual I am in a foolish panic about it. But
I know I can trust you. You know how I choose my words; they
can't be changed. And if you don't like it or think it is wrong just
as it is I'd rather you didn't print it. I'll try to do another.

Will you tell me if you've time what you think of it?
Again (as usual) I burn to know and you see there is NO ONE here.

It was one of my queer hallucinations; I wrote it straight off.
And I've no copy.

I hope you like my little boy. His name is HENNIE.

October 7920

It is such a Heavenly Day that I hardly know how to celebrate
it or rather I keep on celebrating it having a kind of glorified
Mass with full Choir. (But a bas the Roman Catholics!) It's just
blue and gold. In the valley two workmen are singing their
voices come pressing up, expanding, scattering in the light you
know those Italian voices! I think from the sound they are build-
ing a house: I am sure the walls will hold this singing for ever,
and on every fine day, put your hand there on that curve or that
arch, and there'll be a warmth, a faint vibration. . . . The sun
woke me at 7 o'clock sitting sur mes pieds comme un chat d'or
mais c'etait moi qui a fait ron-ron. And at 7.15 Marie brought
dejeuner petits pains with miel des Alpes and hot coffee on a
fringed tray. Her old bones were fairly singing, too. I said, " Vous

1 The Young Girl.

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^^r^f-^-^^^f-^^f^f-^r^*~^^^*~f~*~*~r- *~*~4~^^t~4~^r~~f-r' -*~-~ ~' ~' ~' ~~'~'-'*>

allez au marche, Marie ? " She said, rather aggrieved " Mais
comme vous voyez, Madame, je suis en train d'y aller" and
then I noticed she was " dressed " for the occasion, i.e., she had
flung on her shoulders a most minute black shawl with a tiny
bobble fringe. This she always holds over her mouth to guard
against le frais du matin when she scuttles off with her panier
and filet. She really is a superb type.

Good God! There are two lizards rushing up the palm tree!
Lizards glisten, Heaven bless them. In the trunk of the palm high
up some tiny sweet peas are growing and some frail dandelions.
I love to see them. As I wrote that, one lizard fell simply fell with
a crash (about 5000 feet) on to the terrace and the other looked
over one of those palm chunks really it did. I've never seen such
an affair. It was Wig that fell of course. Now she's picked her-
self up and is flying back. She seems as good as new but it's
a mad thing to do.

October 13, 7920

I am amazed at the sudden "mushroom growth" of cheap
psycho-analysis everywhere. Five novels one after the other are
based on it: it's in everything. And I want to prove it won't do
it's turning Life into a case. And yet, of course, I do believe one
ought to be able to not ought one's novel if it's a good one
will be capable of being proved scientifically correct. Here the
thing that's happening now is the impulse to write is a different
impulse. With an artist one has to allow Oh tremendously
for the sub-conscious element in his work. He writes he knows
not what he's possessed. I don't mean, of course, always, but
when he's inspired as a sort of divine flower to all his terrific
hard gardening there comes this sub-conscious . . . wisdom. Now
these people who are nuts on analysis seem to me to have no sub-
conscious at all. They write to prove not to tell the truth. Oh,
I am so dull aren't I ? I'll stop. I wish they'd stop, tho' ! It's such
gross impertinence.

Later. I've just been to the Villa Louise, stolen three whopping
lemons and had a talk to their jardinier who comes here le ven-
dredi to plant flowers autour du palmier. This man drew a design

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of the flower bed on the gravel and then, after telling me the
names of the flowers, he described them. You know, it was terrific
to hear him. In trying to describe the scent. ..." Cest un
parrr-fum " and then he threw back his head, put his thumb
and finger to his nose took a long breath and suddenly exploded
it in a kind of AAAhhh! almost staggering backwards over-
come, almost fainting; and then, in telling me of des paquerettes,
" ce sont de tout petite fleurs qui se regardent comme s'ils disent:
c'est moi qui est plus jolie que toil " Oh dear me I wonder if it
is so wonderful. I sat down on a bench and felt as though waves of
health went flowing through me. To think the man cares like that
responds laughs like he does and snips off a rosebud for you
while he talks. Then I think of poor busmen and tube men and
the ugliness of wet, dark London. It's wrong. People who are at
all sensitive ought not to live there. I'll tell you (as it's my birthday
to-morrow) a tale about this man. He came to see me. I had to en-
gage him. First he passed me in the garden and went to Marie to
ask for Madame Murry. Marie said " But you've seen her a 1 -
ready " He said: "No there's only une petite personne
une fillettc se quinze ans enfin sur la terrasse." Marie thought
this a very great joke. Bit steep wasn't it? I expect I'll be about
five by Xmas time just old enough for a Christmas tree. . . .

Doctor Mee who was Mother's doctor, too can't get over
my improvement in the last fortnight. He's staggered. But he says
he does wish you would go to Gamage and buy her a pair of
shoulder straps you know the things, I mean. They're to keep
me from stooping. I stoop mainly from habit. I feel so much better
that I almost have to tie myself to my chaise longue. But I know
now is the moment to go slow. Alas, I'm so infernally wise in
these things. Oh Heavenly day. I wish you'd shared my boisson
that fresh lemon with a lump of sugar and Saint-Galmier.

Every morning I have a sea-water bath in a saucer and to-day
after it, still wet, I stood in the full sun to dry both windows
wide open. One can't help walking about naked in the mornings
one almost wades in the air. I'm writing, facing Italy great
mountains, grey-gold with tufts of dark green against a sheer blue
sky. Yes, I confess it's hard work to wait for you. Can we hope
for more than how many? springs and summers. I don't
want to miss one.

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October ij, 1920

I've just got back from Dr. B. I expect you'd like to know what
he's like. He seems to me a very decent, intelligent soul quite
as good as any other doctor. He approved absolutely of my life
and conditions of life here and is going to keep an eye on me.
The result of his examination was the eternal same. Of course,
one can see that the disease is of long standing but there is no
reason why provided subject to if and so on and so on.
Not in the least depressing. Yet the foolish creature always does
expect the doctor to put down his stethoscope to turn to her and
say with quiet confidence: " I can cure you, Mrs. Murry."

He has the same disease himself. I recognised his smile just
the least shade too bright and his strange joyousness as he came
to meet one just the least shade too pronounced his air of being
a touch more alive than other people the gleam the faint
glitter on the plant that the frost has laid a finger on. ... He is
only about 33, and I feel that his experience at the war had changed
him. In fact, he seemed to me fully like what a young Duhamel
might be. I'm to go on just as I'm going until he sees me again, i.e.,
half an hour's walk the rest of the time in my chaise longue.
There's really nothing to tell. He had such a charming little old-
fashioned photograph in a round frame on his mantelpiece
faded but so delightful a girl with her curls pinned back
and a velvet ribbon round her throat. . . . His mother, I suppose.
This seemed to me more important than all else.

It's 3.30, Sunday afternoon. Marie is out and L. M. has gone off
to tea with some cronies and a French poodle. So I have the house
to myself. It's a cloudy, windless day. There is such a great
stretch of sky to be seen from my terrasse that one's always con-
scious of the clouds. One forgets that clouds are in London and
here they are how shall I put it they are a changing back-
ground to the silence. Extraordinary how many planes one can
see one cloud and behind it another and then a lake and on the
far side of the lake a mountain. I wonder if you would feed on
this visible world as I do. I was looking at some leaves only yester-
day idly looking and suddenly I became conscious of them
of the amazing " freedom " with which they were " drawn "
of the life in each curve but not as something outside oneself,

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but as part of one as though like a magician I could put forth
my hand and shake a green branch into my fingers from . . . ?
And I feel as though one received accepted absorbed the
beauty of the leaves even into one's physical being. Do you feel
like that about things ?

Ah, but you would have loved the golden moth that flew in here
last night. It had a head like a tiny owl, a body covered with down
wings divided into minute feathers and powdered with gold.
I felt it belonged to a poem.

Tomlinson's story was very good. 1 It just missed it, though at
the end. I mean judging from the Tchekhov standpoint. The
thing I prize, admire, and respect in his stories is his knowledge.
They are true. I trust him. This is becoming most awfully im-
portant to me a writer must have knowledge he must make
one feel the ground is firm beneath his feet. The vapourings I
read, the gush, wind give one a perfect Sehnsucht for some-
thing hard to bite on.

I don't know whether it's I that have " fallen behind " in this
procession but truly the books I read nowadays astound me.
Female writers discovering a freedom, a frankness, a license, to
speak their hearts, reveal themselves as ... sex maniacs. There's
not a relationship between a man and woman that isn't the one
sexual relationship at its lowest. Intimacy is the sexual act. I am
terribly ashamed to tell the truth ; it's a very horrible exposure.

October 7920

I return de la Mare's letter. I long to hear of your time with him.
It's very queer; he haunts me here not a persistent or substantial
ghost but as one who shares my joy in the silent world joy is not
the word, I only used it because it conveys a stillness, a remoteness,
because there is a far away sound in it.

You know, I have felt very often lately as though the silence
had some meaning beyond these signs, these intimations. Isn't it
possible that if one yielded there is a whole world into which one
is received ? It is so near and yet I am conscious that I hold back
from giving myself up to it. What is this something mysterious
that waits that beckons ?

1 In a Coffee Shop.

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And then suffering, bodily suffering such as I've known for
three years. It has changed for ever everything even the appear-
ance of the world is not the same there is something added.
Everything has its shadow. Is it right to resist such suffering? Do
you know I feel it has been an immense privilege. Yes, in spite of
all. How blind we little creatures are! It's only the fairy tales we
really live by. If we set out upon a journey, the more wonderful
the treasure, the greater the temptations and perils to be overcome.
And if someone rebels and says, Life isn't good enough on those
terms, one can only say: " It is I " Don't misunderstand me. I don't
mean a " thorn in the flesh " it's a million times more mysterious.
It has taken me three years to understand this to come to see
this. We resist, we are terribly frightened. The little boat enters
the dark fearful gulf and our only cry is to escape " put me on
land again." But it's useless. Nobody listens. The shadowy figure
rows on. One ought to sit still and uncover one's eyes.

I believe the greatest failing of all is to be frightened. Perfect
Love casteth our Fear. When I look back on my life all my mistakes
have been because I was afraid. . . . Was that why I had to look
on death? Would nothing less cure me? You know, one can't
help wondering, sometimes. . . . No, not a personal God or any
such nonsense. Much more likely the soul's desperate
choice. . . .

P.S. Can you bring Ribni at Xmas ? There is a shop in Nice
which cures Poupees cassees. When I read of it I almost tele-
graphed for Ribni. I want him to be made good as new again. He
haunts me Ah, I can see a story in this idea. . . .

To Sydney and Violet Schiff Sunday

October 24, 7920

I did not answer your letter at the time because I was ill, and I
become utterly weary of confessing it.

Especially as it's the kind of thing one does so hate to hear
one can't really sympathise with. People who are continually cry-
ing out are exasperating. And they (or at any rate I) are dread-
fully conscious of it.

But now that I have been let out on ticket of leave at least
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I long to write to you. You are never far from my thoughts. Some
afternoons I feel positive that the voiture down below there is
come from Roquebrune and that in another moment or two you
will be here on the terrace. But there is too much to talk about. In
London there never seems time. One is always just beginning
when one is whirled away again. Here, one is so uninterrupted,
it is like one immensely long night and one immensely long day.

But it takes long before the tunes cease revolving in one's head,
before the sound of the clapping and the sensation of the crowd
ceases to possess one. One cannot hail solitude as one can hail
a dark cab. To disentangle oneself completely takes long. . . .
Nevertheless, I believe one must do it and no less if one
wants to work.

To J. M. Murry October 1920

To be free to be free! That's all I ask. There's nine o'clock
striking gently, beautifully from a steeple in the old town. The
sound floats across the water. I wish you were here and we were
alone. . . . Did I tell you I have a little bookcase made by a car-
penter wot lives on the hill? He made it most rarely: dovetailed
the corners isn't that right and cut a little ornament on the
top shelves and then painted it pale yellow. 24 francs. His wife
sent with it a bouquet of Zinnias, the like of which I've never
seen. These people with their only child, a lovely little boy of
about five, live in their own house with their own garden. He
seems to work for his own pleasure. Where do they get the
money? The little boy who's like an infant St. John wears little
white overalls, pink socks and sandals. " Dis bon jour a Madame!
Ou est ton chapeau! Vite! Ote-le! " and this hissed in a terrible
voice with rolling eyes by the father. The little boy slowly looks up
at his father and gives a very slow ravishing smile.

It's really queer about these people. Marie was saying the mi-
mosa tree leans it's got a list on it and, of course, prophesying
that (" esperons toujours que non, Madame, mats . . ") it will
fall and crush us all. When she described how the tree leant she
took the posture she became a mimosa tree little black dress
trimmed with crepe, white apron, grey hair changed into a tree.

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And this was so intensely beautiful that it made me almost weep.
It was Art, you know. I must get up. The day is still unbroken.
One can hear a soft roaring from the sea and that's all.

I've just got the milk book to pay. It's a minute pink carnet de
. . . appurtenant a . . . commence le . . . you know the kind,
with broad lines inside, and on the back the Table de Multiplica-
tion but only up to 6 fois i font 6. Doesn't that make you see its
real owner ?

October 7920

It's very cold here. I have a fire and a rug and a screen. But, of
course, the cold is not London cold it's pure and it's somehow
exciting. The leaves shake in the garden the rose buds arc very
tight shut there's a kind of whiteness in the sky over the sea.
I loved such days when I was a child. I love them here. In fact,
I think Mentone must be awfully like N.Z. but ever so much
better. The little milk-girl comes in at a run, letting the gate
swing; she has a red stocking tied round her neck. Marie pre-
dicts a strike, snow, no food, no fuel and only la volonte de Dieu
will save us. But while she drees her weird -she begins to laugh
and then forgets. A poor little cat, terrified, with pink eyes, looked
in and begged and then slunk away. To my joy I hear it dashed
into the dining room, seized a poisson on the console and made
off with it. Hooray !

What silly little things to tell you but they make a kind of
Life they are part of a Life that I LOVE. If you were here you'd
know what I mean. It's a kind of freedom a sense of living
not enduring not existing but being alive. I feel I could have
children here for about a farthing each, and dress them in little
bits cut off one's own clothes. It wouldn't matter as long as they
had feathers in their hats. It's all so EASY.

October 7920

If a thing is important I have to put a *&* hand pointing to it
because I know how sleepy you are in the morning and I imagine
these devilish devices wake you or terrify you (pleasantly). Yes,

really the papers are disgusting. gave Jane Burr a whole

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column with Sorel and Syndicalism and any-fresh-fish-to-gut-on-
the-problem-of-marriage-is-to-be-welcomed, etc. She makes me
feel a very old-fashioned creature. I feel if I met her I should have
to say: " And are you one of these New Women? "

Did you see that Connie Ediss has had the thyroid gland treat-
ment (she's 50) and is now become 19 and climbs trees. I should
just think she did climb trees. That seemed to me terribly signifi-
cant. I remember her singing: " It seemed a bit of all right " years
ago. Poor old S. will become a great climber, I expect!

I seem a bit silly to-day. It's the wind. I feel inclined to sing,

" When I was young and had no sense
I bought a Fiddle for eighteen pence."

Perhaps it was Marie's lunch. A good cook is an amazing thing.
And we have never had one. I'm interrupted by the electrician
who comes to mend a wire. He is a boy of certainly not more than
14 in a blue overall. Just a child standing on the table and fixing
wires and turning over tools (rattling them!) in a box. I don't
know The world is changing. He's a very nice little boy. He
asked Marie pour une echelle. We haven't one. " Donnez-moi une
chaise." She brought one, " C'est trop bas. Vous avez une table
solide" (as tho' none of your fandangles here). But she scorns
him and made him stand on a newspaper nearly tied a bib
round him.

To Hugh Walpole October 27, 7920

I must answer your letter immediately. It has dropped into the
most heavenly fair morning. I wish instead of writing you were
here on the terrace and you'd let me talk of your book which I far
from detested. What an impression to convey! My trouble is I
never have enough space to get going to say what I mean to
say fully. That's no excuse, really. But to be called very unfair
that hurts, awfully, and I feel that by saying so you mean I'm
not as honest as I might be. I'm prejudiced. Well, I think we're
all of us more or less prejudiced, but cross my heart I don't take
reviewing lightly and if I appear to it's the fault of my unfor-
tunate manner.

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Letters 7920

Now I shall be dead ]ran\. And please don't answer. As one
writer to another (tho' I'm only a little beginner, and fully
realise it).

The Captives impressed me as more like a first novel than any
genuine first novel I've come across. Of course, there were signs
enough that it wasn't one but the movement of it was the
movement of one trying his wings, finding out how they would
bear him, how far he could afford to trust them, that you were
continually risking yourself, that you had, for the first time, really
committed yourself in a book. I wonder if this will seem to you
extravagant impertinence. I honoured you for it. You seemed to
me determined to shirk nothing. You know that strange sense of
insecurity at the last, the feeling " I know all this. I know more. I
know down to the minutest detail and perhaps more still, but
shall I dare to trust myself to tell all ? " It is really why we write,
as I see it, that we may arrive at this moment and yet it is step-
ping into the air to yield to it a kind of anguish and rapture.
I felt that you appreciated this, and that, seen in this light, your
Captives was almost a spiritual exercise in this kind of courage.
But in fact your peculiar persistent consciousness of what you
wanted to do was what seemed to me to prevent your book from
being a creation. That is what I meant when I used the clumsy
word "task"; perhaps "experiment" was nearer my meaning.
You seemed to lose in passion what you gained in sincerity and
therefore " the miracle " didn't happen. I mean the moment when
the act of creation takes place the mysterious change when
you are no longer writing the book, // is writing, it possesses you.
Does that sound hopelessly vague ?

But there it is. After reading The Captives I laid it down think-
ing: Having " broken with his past " as he has in this book, hav-
ing " declared himself," I feel that Hugh Walpole's next novel
will be the one to look for. Yes, curse me. I should have said it !

I sympathise more than I can say with your desire to escape
from autobiography. Don't you feel that what English writers
lack to-day is experience of Life. I don't mean that superficially.
But they are self-imprisoned. I think there is a very profound dis-
tinction between any kind of confession and creative work not
that that rules out the first by any means.

About the parson and his sister. Yes, they are truly observed,

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but they wouldn't come into my review because I didn't think
they really came into the book ! What was Maggie to them or
they to Maggie? What did they matter to Maggie what was
their true relation ? I can't see it. I can't see the reason for those
two. I can imagine Maggie forgetting them utterly the moment
she set foot in London. That their religion was more foreign to
her than the other one doesn't need to be told. The point is Mag-
gie never was in Skeaton; she was somewhere else. As to her holi-
day in that place where everything was green I never knew
what happened on that holiday ? The parson's sister what a story
you might have made of her and Paul! (I don't think that Paul's
passion for Maggie would have lasted, either. He would have be-
come frightened of her, physically and terribly ashamed.) Yes,
I feel Skeaton could have had a book to itself with Paul's sister
getting old you know, her descent into old age, her fears in-
creasing, and then something like the Uncle Matthew affair break-
ing into her life. . . .

And I stick to what I said about Caroline. Yes, you might have
trusted Caroline, but a young female wouldn't. If Caroline had
come to her father's door Maggie would have stiffened, have been
on her guard immediately. As to trusting her with a letter to
Martin never!

Some of their love making was very beautiful it had that
tragic, youthful quality.

But enough. Forgive this long letter. I'll try to see more round
the books. I've no doubt at all I'm a bad reviewer. Your letter made
me want to shake hands with you across the vast.

I hope this isn't too illegible. But I'm rather a feeble creature
in a chaise longue.

To J. M. Murry October 7920

I am exceedingly glad you joined hands with the Oxford Pro-
fessori. The Daily Mail FOAMED to-day on the subject. It almost
went so far as to say the library at Liege and such acts of burning
were by Professors only. It but let it pass! In the Times I noted
a book by a Doctor Schinz not a good book, but the Times no-
ticed it as though Schinz were kneeling on Podsnap's doormat.
Faugh!

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How long can it go on ! You know whenever I go away I realise
that it has happened. The change has come. Nothing is the same.
I positively feel one has no right to run a paper without preach-
ing a gospel. (I know you do, but I mean with all the force of
one's soul.) I get an evangelist feeling, when I read Fashion News
in the DM. and then Strike News and Irish News and so many
thousands out of work. But above and beyond that I realise the
" spiritual temper " of the world. I feel as though the step has been
taken we are over the edge. Is it fantastic ? Who is going to pull
us up? I certainly had no end of an admiration for L. G. but then
he's capable of that speech on reprisals which really was a vile
speech from a " statesman." It was perfectly obvious he had no
intention of saying what he did when he got up to speak he
was carried away. It is all over really. That's why I shall be so
thankful when you pack your rucksack and come over here. The
only sort of paper for the time is an out and out personal, dead
true, dead sincere paper in which we spoke our HEARTS and
MINDS.

You know there are moments when I want to make an appeal
to all our generation who do believe that the war has changed
everything to come forward and let's start a crusade. But I know,
darling, I am not a crusader and it's my job to dwell apart and
write my best for those that come after.

Does your soul trouble you ? Mine does. I feel that only now
(October 1920) do I desire to be saved. I realise what salvation
means and I long for it. Of course, I am not speaking as a Chris-
tian or about a personal God, But the feeling is ... I believe (and
VERY MUCH); help thou my unbelief. But it's to myself I cry
to the spirit, the essence of me that which lives in Beauty. Oh,
these words. And yet I should be able to explain. But I'm impa-
tient with you. I always " know you understand and take it for
granted." But just very lately I seem to have seen my whole past
to have gone through it to have emerged, very weak and
very new. The soil (which wasn't at all fragrant) has at last pro-
duced something which isn't a weed but which I do believe (after
Heaven knows how many false alarms) is from the seed which
was sown. But it's taken 32 years in the dark. . . .

And I long for goodness to live by what is permanent in
the soul.

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It all sounds vague. You may wonder what induces me to write
this. But as 1 walked up and down outside the house this evening
the clouds heaped on the horizon noble, shining clouds, the
deep blue waves they set me thinking again.

October 7920

I would have enjoyed Goodyear pa-man. I remember giving
F. G. my photo and he telling me his father had said it was a fine
head. I remember how he laughed and so did I and I said " I
shall have to grow a pair of horns and have it stuffed to hang on
Murry's door." When I recall Goodyear I can't believe he is
nowhere just as when I recall Chummie he comes before me,
warm, laughing, saying " Oh, abso/#tely." What a darling boy
he was !

I love this place more and more. One is conscious of it as I
used to be conscious of New Zealand. I mean if I went for a walk
there and lay down under a pine tree and looked up at the wispy
clouds through the branches I came home plus the pine tree
don't you know ? Here it's just the same. I go for a walk and I
watch the butterflies in the heliotrope and the young bees and
some old bumble ones and all these things are added unto me.
Why I don't feel like this in England Heaven knows. But my
light goes out in England, or it's a very small and miserable shiner.

This isn't a letter. It's just a note. Yes. I shall provide small pink
carnets for our accounts at Xmas. Slates, too, with holes burnt
in them for the sponge string. Did you ever burn a hole in the
frame ? Thrilling deed. It was Barry Waters' speciality, with his
initials burnt, too and a trimming. I can see it now.

Saturday
October 30, 7920

Your Tuesday letter came, telling me that you were reading
Mrs. Asquith. I read certain parts of her book and felt just that
there was something decent. At the same time the whole book
seems to me /^-decent. Perhaps I feel more than anything that
she's one of those people who have no past and no future. She's
capable of her girlish pranks and follies to-day in fact, she's

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at the mercy of herself now and for ever as she was then. And that's
bad. We only live by somehow absorbing the past changing it.
I mean really examining it and dividing what is important from
what is not (for there is waste) and transforming it so that it be-
comes part of the life of the spirit and we are free of it. It's no
longer our personal past, it's just in the highest possible sense, our
servant. I mean that it is no longer our master. 1 With Mrs. A. this
process (by which the artist and the " living being " lives) never
takes place. She is for ever driven.

" I am the Cup that thirsteth for the Wine "

These half-people are very queer very tragic, really. They are
neither simple nor are they artists. They are between the two
and yet they have the desires (no, appetites) of both. I believe their
secret whisper is: 'If only I had found THE MAN I might have
been anything . . ." But the man isn't born and so they turn to
life and parade and preen and confess and dare and lavish
themselves on what they call Life. " Come woo me woo me."

How often I've seen that in as her restless distracted glance

swept the whole green country-side. . . .

(By the way, I do love Sir Toby's saying to Viola, " Come taste
your legs, Sir. Put them in motion," when he wanted her to leap
and fly. I wish I had a little tiny boy to say that to.)

There's a violent N.W. wind to-day a howling one I had
to go into town. The great immense waves were sweeping right
up to the road and over. I wish you'd seen them. Three brigs are
in the sailors' pants hanging on lines and dancing hornpipes.
Leaves are falling; it's like autumn. But the shops are full of
flowers and everywhere little girls, wrapped up to the eyes, go by
at a run carrying a bouquet of chrysanthemums in a paper
For to-morrow is Le Toussaint.

October 1920

You say you would " dearly love to know exactly what I feel "
I thought I had told you. But my writing is so bad, my expres-
sion so vague that I expect I didn't make myself clear. I'll try to

1 That is the wrong image. I used to think this process was fairly unconscious.
Now I feel just the contrary. (K. M.'s note.)

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Letters 1920

" Between the acting of a dreadful thing
w . And the first motion, all the interim is

, , . Like a phantasma or a dreadful dream;

i ? _, 1S The genius and the mortal instruments

, | Are then in council; and the state of man

Like to a little Kingdom suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."

The " thing " was not always " dreadful " neither was the
" dream," and you must substitute " spirit " for genius otherwise
there you have my life as I see it up till now complete with all
the alarms, enthusiasms, terrors, excitements in fact the nature
of an insurrection.

I've been dimly aware of it many times I've had moments
when it has seemed to me that this wasn't what my little King-
dom ought to be like yes, and longings and regrets. But only
since I came away this time have I fully realised it confronted
myself as it were, looked squarely at the extraordinary " condi-
tions " of my existence.

... It wasn't flattering or pleasant or easy. I expect your sins
are of the subconscious; they are easier to forgive than mine.
I've acted my sins, and then excused them or put them away with
" it doesn't do to think about these things " or (more often) " it
was all experience." But it hasn't ALL been experience. There is
waste destruction, too. So I confronted myself. As I write I
falsify slightly. I can't help it; it's all so difficult. The whole thing
was so much deeper and more difficult than I've described it
subtler less conscious and more conscious if you know what
I mean. I didn't walk up and down the room and groan, you
know. As I am talking to you I'll dare say it all took place on an-
other plane, because then we can smile at the description and yet
mean something by it.

And I don't want to imply that the Battle is over and here I am
victorious. I've escaped from my enemies emerged that is as
far as I've got. But it is a different state of being to any I've known
before and if I were to sin now it would be mortal.

There. Forgive this rambling involved statement.

Monday. Midi: waiting for lunch. " En tirant la langue comme
un chien " as they say here.

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Letters 1920

&+^^*++^+^^^^^-++^^<~^*^-~*****~*~*^-^^^*^^^-**^^'^**^

It's simply heavenly here to-day warm, still, with wisps of
cloud just here and there and le ciel deep blue. Everything is ex-
panding and growing after the rain; the buds on the tea roses are
so exquisite that one feels quite faint regarding them. A pink rose,
" chinesy pink " in my mind, is out there are multitudes of
flowers and buds. And the freezias are up and the tangerines are
turning. A painter whose ladder I see against the house across
the valley has been singing ancient Church music awfully com-
plicated stuff. But what a choice! How much more suited to the
day and the hour than and now, I'm dished. For every song I
wanted to find ridiculous seems somehow charming and appropri-
ate and quite equally lovable.

I put more whitewash on the old woman's face
Than I did on the gar den wall !

for instance. That seems to me a thoroughly good song. You
know the first two lines are:

Up an' down, up an' down, in an' out the window
I did no good at all.

Sam Mayo used to sing it. Things weren't so bad in those days.
I really believe everything was better. The tide of barbarism wasn't
flowing in.

I was all wrong about the house painter!! He's just come back
from lunch in a grey flannel suit put on his overall and
started singing in English! Elizabethan airs. He must be some
sensible fellow who's taken the little house and is doing the job
himself. He makes me think of you but his singing is different

more difficult. . . .

Dream I.

I was living at home again in the room with the fire-escape. It
was night: Father and Mother in bed. Vile people came into my
room. They were drunk. B. led them. " You don't take me in, old
dear," said she. " You've played the Lady once too often, Miss
coming it over me." And she shouted, screamed Femme marquee
and banged the table. I rushed away. I was going away next morn-
ing so I decided to spend the night in the dark streets and went
to a theatre in Piccadilly Circus. The play, a costume play of the

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Letters 7920

Restoration, had just begun. The theatre was small and packed.
Suddenly the people began to speak too slowly, to mumble: they
looked at each other stupidly. One by one they drifted off the
stage and very slowly a black iron curtain was lowered. The peo-
ple in the audience looked at one another. Very slowly, silently,
they got up and moved towards the doors stole away.

An enormous crowd filled the Circus: it was black with people.
They were not speaking a low murmur came from it that was
all. They were still. A white-faced man looked over his shoulder
and trying to smile he said: " The Heavens are changing already;
there are six moons! "

Then I realised that our earth had come to an end. I looked up.
The sky was ashy-green; six livid quarters swam in it. A very fine
soft ash began to fall. The crowd parted. A cart drawn by two
small black horses appeared. Inside there were Salvation Army
women doling tracts out of huge marked boxes. They gave me
one! " Are you corrupted? "

It got very dark and quiet and the ash fell faster. Nobody
moved.

Dream II.

In a cafe G. met me. " Katherine, you must come to my table.
I've got Oscar Wilde there. He's the most marvellous man I ever
met. He's splendid ! " G. was flushed. When he spoke of Wilde
he began to cry tears hung on his lashes, but he smiled.

Oscar Wilde was very shabby. He wore a green overcoat. He
kept tossing and tossing back his long greasy hair with the whitest
hand. When he met me he said: "Oh Katherine!" very
affected.

But I did find him a fascinating talker. So much so that I asked
him to come to my home. He said would 12.30 to-night do ? When
I arrived home it seemed madness to have asked him. Father and
Mother were in bed. What if Father came down and found that
chap Wilde in one of the chintz armchairs ? Too late now. I waited
by the door. He came with Lady M. I saw he was disgustingly
pleased to have brought her. He said, " Katherine's hand the
same gentle hand!" as he took mine. But again when we sat
down I couldn't help it. He was attractive as a curiosity. He
was fatuous and brilliant!

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Letters 7920

" You know, Katherine, when I was in that dreadful place I
was haunted by the memory of a cafe. It used to float in the air
before me a little delicate thing stuffed with cream and with the
cream there was something scarlet. It was made of pastry and I
used to call it my little Arabian Nights cake. But I don't remem-
ber the name. Oh, Katherine, it was torture. It used to hang in
the air and smile at me. And every time I resolved that next time
they let someone come and see me I would ask them to tell me
what it was but every time, Katherine, I was ashamed. Even
now . . ."

I said, " Mille feuilles a la creme ? "

At that he turned round in the armchair and began to sob, and
M., who carried a parasol, opened it and put it over him. . . .

I'm not up to much to-day. Yesterday was dark and stormy:
to-day is too. And in spite of my feelings the weather affects me
physically. I fly so high that when I go down it's a drop. Noth-
ing serious; just a touch of cold, but with it to "bear it com-
pany " a black mood. Don't pay any attention to it. I expect it will
have lifted utterly by the time this reaches you. And it's really
caused by a queer kind of pressure which is work to be done.
/ am writing do you know the feeling ? and until this story is
finished I am engulfed. It's not a tragic story either but there
you are. It seizes me swallows me completely. I am Jonah in the
whale and only you could charm that old whale to disgorge me.
Your letters did for a minute but now I'm in again and we're
thrashing through deep water. I fully realise it. It's the price we
have to pay we writers. I'm lost gone possessed and every-
body who comes near is my enemy.

P.M.
"November 3, 7920

Here it is under my hand finished another story about as
long as The Man Without a Temperament perhaps longer. It's
called The Stranger, a " New Zealand " story. My depression has
gone; so it was just this. And now it's here, thank God and the
fire burns and it's warm and tho' the wind is howling it can
howl. What a QUEER business writing is! I don't know. I don't

= 346 =

Letters 7920

believe other people are ever as foolishly excited as I am while I'm
working. How could they be ? Writers would have to live in trees.
I've been this man, been this woman. I've stood for hours on the
Auckland Wharf. I've been out in the stream waiting to be berthed
I've been a seagull hovering at the stern and a hotel porter
whistling through his teeth. It isn't as though one sits and watches
the spectacle. That would be thrilling enough, God knows. But
one is the spectacle for the time. If one remained oneself all the
time like some writers can it would be a bit less exhausting. It's
a lightning change affair, tho'. But what does it matter! I'll keep
this story for you to read at Xmas. I only want to give it to you
now. Accept my new story. Give it your blessing.

To Sydney Schiff 'November 4, 7920

Yes, there are weak spots in A Gift from the Dusl^ but com-
pared to the unworthy, stupifying, untruthful rubbish of to-day it
did not do, I felt, to comment on them. The worst of it is, now-
adays, that the majority of novels is so bad one becomes almost
fearful of the strength of one's feeling for a " good " one. There
were touches in that book that moved me tremendously. I felt that
in the intimacy between Stephen and Mary Prowse was, many
times, speaking a language which I long in vain to hear spoken.
The intimacy of two beings who are essential to each other who
is going to write that ? And yet Love that is less than that one
wearies of hearing of it.

I wish there were six or seven writers who wrote for themselves
and let the world go hang. But where are they ?

To /. M. Murry Thursday

November 4, 7920

Thursday: I had about i inch of mouse's tail from you to-day,
but it was the gay and wavy end so it didn't matter. Twas writ on
Monday. . . . There's a debonair wind blowing to-day and a very
pale, faint, jonquil sun. I send you Hugh Walpole's letter. He
seems to me most awfully nice; and it is in reply to one which I
sent him telling him what I really did think of his book I mean

= 347 =

Letters 7920

as man to man I said: " Just for once I'll be dead fran\ " and
you know what that means. But I felt nobody else ever would and
it was an opportunity. Besides his letter somehow called for one's
deep sincerity. And instead of sending mine back with " This is
outrageous " he replies so gently.

W. wrote yesterday too touched one's heart. His wife has
been very ill, she's had an operation and so on, and poor old W. is
shattered. . . . His letter has actually " by the Grace of God " and
" D. V." in it. What old Death can't shake out of us! But it's very
touching to know how frail is one's hold on Picture Galleries and
Editions de Luxe.

If the Last Trump ever did sound would it frighten us? I
don't think it would in the least. If God didn't take us both into
Heaven I'd rather be in Hell and out of sight of anyone so stupid.

(I told poor old L. M. yesterday that after I died to PROVE there
was no immortality I would send her a coffin worm in a match
box. She was gravely puzzled.)

Friday
November 5, 7920

Oh, by the way, I had my photo taken yesterday for a sur-
prise for you. I'll only get des epreuves on Monday tho'. I should
think it ought to be extraordinary. The photographer took off my
head and then balanced it on my shoulders again at all kinds of
angles as tho' it were what Violet would call an art pot. "Ne
bougez PAS en souriant leggerreMENT Bouche CLOSE." A kind
of drill. Those penny studios fascinate me. I must put a story in
one one day. They are the most temporary shelters on earth. Why
is there always a dead bicycle behind a velvet curtain ? Why does
one always sit on a faded piano stool ? And then, the plaster pillar,
the basket of paper flowers, the storm background and the smell.
I love such endroits.

November 7920

I am awfully excited to-day. It's for this reason. I have made an
offer to J. for this villa for one year from May ist next and tho'
the offer has not been accepted it has also not been refused.

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Letters 1920

Chances are even. Oh dear, what torture! Perhaps you don't know
that my feelings towards this villa are so fearfully intense that I
think I shall have to be evicted if she doesn't give it to me. It's the
first real home of my own I have ever loved. Pauline yes, it
wasn't home tho', neither was Runcton, not even Hampstead. Not
really, not with this thrill. This little place is and always will be
for me the one and only place, I feel. My heart beats for it as
it beats for Karori. Isn't it awful ? And for US it is made in every
single particular. True there's no salle de bain. But there's a huge
saucer bath and a spung as big as me. So what matters! The divine
incomparable situation is the trick, I suppose. Heaven from dawn
to dawn. Walking on the terrace by starlight looking through my
vieux palmier I could weep for joy running into the garden
to see how many more buds are out in the morning is to run
straight at into a blessing. The fires all burn but not fright-
fully the doors shut the kitchen is big and the larder is down
10 steps that send a chill to one's knees. The garde-linge is im-
mense, all fitted with cupboards and shelves. The luggage is kept
there and the umbrellas and the flags that flew at my gate on the
nth. One gets one's parasol from the garde-linge. Your feltie
would be there, too. There's enough garden for you to bien gratter
in. At the back we could grow veg. In fack, it is the dearest, most
ideal little corner. And private just the next thing to an island.

Hold thumbs for me. Truly this is a great turning point. I'm try-
ing to be calm, but it's not easy with such bliss in the balance
I had to offer an immense sum 6000 francs.

Am I a little bit mad? You will find ISOLA BELLA in poker
work on my heart. The baths are only ten minutes away from you
in the summer, sea baths with splash boards no, spring boards
for you to plop off. I wait outside with a bun for you with big cur-
rant eyes (the bun I mean!).

"November 1920

I've just finished a story called The Ladies' Maid which I'm
sending for the paper. I do hope you will care to print it. It's what
I meant when I said a Xmas story. Dear knows, Xmas doesn't
come in it after all and you may think I'm a fraud. But I think, all
the same, people might like to read it at Xmas time. The number

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Letters 1920

of letters I've had about Miss Brill! I think I am very fortunate
to have people like my stories don't you ? But I must say it does
surprise me. This one I'd like you and de la Mare to like other
people don't matter.

It's hell to know one could do so much and be bound to jour-
nalism for bread. If I was a proper journalist I'd give the day to
reviewing and so on but no! Reviewing is on my chest AND
a sense of GUILT the whole week! However it can't be helped.
I'll win out and then I don't want to read another novel for

But isn't it grim to be reviewing Benson when one might be
writing one's own stories which one will never have time to write,
on the best showing!

Personally I want to make money by my stories now I can't
live poor can't worry about butter and cabs and woollen dresses
and the chemist's bill and work too. I don't want to live rich
God forbid but I must be free and ga coute cher aujourd'hui.

The story will go to you Wednesday morning. A typist has been
found at 7 francs a 1000. 1 think she is mad as well. But I can't af-
ford not to send corrected copies.

What a horrible note this is. And there's the evening star, like
an emerald hanging over the palm. Forgive me, evening star.
These are only sparks on my coat they are not my real fur. But
the ancien couteau burns faintly in my left lung to-night and
that makes me wicked. Wicked, but loving.

November 1920

Always examine both sides. In my house both sides are but-
tered.

Re your review of Mrs. Asquith. I thought it was very good but
. . . your feeling was really contained in your words : " The type
it reveals is not very intriguing." She isn't your game. When all
is said and done I feel that you haven't time for her and you don't
care a Farthing Taster whether she made her horse walk upstairs
or downstairs or in my lady's chamber. She would weary you.
What is there really to get hold of ? There's nothing in the
sense you mean. The direct method (no, I can't for the life of me
" see " the other) of examining the specimen isn't really much
good except in so far as one can . . . make certain deductions

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Letters 7920

discover certain main weaknesses and falsities. But it's a bit like
trying to operate on a diseased mind by cutting open a brain.
The devil is Oh the very devil is that you may remove every
trace of anything that shouldn't be there and make no end of
a job of it and then in her case, in the case of all such women
the light comes back into the patient's eyes and with it the vaguest
of vague elusive maddening smiles. . . . Do you know what I
mean ? Here's, I think, the root of the matter. What IS Insensitive-
ness ? We know or we could find out by examination what it is
NOT but it seems to me the quality hasn't been discovered yet. I
mean its x it's a subject for research. It most certainly isn't only
the lac\ of certain qualities: it's a kind of positive unknown. Does
all this sound most awful nonsense to you? My vocabulary is
awful, but I mean well and I faint, I thirst to talk. My landscape
is terribly exciting at present. I never knew it contained such
features or such fauna (they are animals various, aren't they?).
But I do want a gentleman prepared to pay his own exes, to join
me in my expedition. Oh, won't YOU come ? No one else will do.
But when you do it's a bit sickening all my wild beasts get a bit
funny-looking they don't look such serious monsters any more.
Instead of lions and tigers it's apt to turn into an affair of:

" The turkey ran pas' with a flag in his mas'
An' cried out: ' What's the mattah ? ' "

Not that I think for one minute that you don't treat me au
GRAND scrieux or would dare to question my intelligence, of
course not. All the same there you are Alone, I'm no end of a
fillasoafer but once you join me in the middle of my seriousness
my deadly seriousness I see the piece of pink wool I have
put on your hair (and that you don't know is there).

I sometimes wonder whether the act of surrender is not one of the
greatest of all the highest. It is one of the (most) difficult of all. Can it be
accomplished or even apprehended except by the aiistocrats of this world?
You see it's so immensely complicated. It " needs " real humility and at the
same time an absolute belief in one's own essential freedom. It is an act of
faith. At the last moments like all great acts it is pure rh\. This is true for
me as a human being and as a writer. Dear Heaven how hard it is to let
go to slip into the blue. And yet one's creative life depends on it and one
desires to do nothing else. I shouldn't have begun on this in the corner of a
letter, darling. It's not the place.

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Letters 1920

To Richard Murry "November 7920

It's 7.15 A.M. and I've just had breakfast in a room lit with great
gorse yellow patches of sunlight. Across one patch there's a feath-
ery pattern that dances that's from the mimosa tree outside.
The two long windows are wide open they are the kind that
open in half with wings, you know so much more generous
than the English kind. A wasp is paddling his pettitoes in the
honey-glass and the sky is a sort of pale lapus lazuli. Big glancing
silver ducks of light dive in and out of the sea.

This kind of weather has gone on for over a week without one
single pause. I take a sun bath every morning costume de bain:
a black paper fan and it has an awfully queer effect on one. I
mean all this radiance has. You know those rare moments when
it's warm enough to lie on your back and bask it's a kind of
prolongation of that. One tries to behave like a sober sensible
creature and to say " thank you " to the postman and " no thank
you " to the umbrella mender but all the time one is hiding broad
beams. So I slink away out of sight of everybody, down the steps
from the terrace and stand underneath a tree called a datura and
there, privately, I gloat. This tree, Sir, is a sight for you. It has
small, close, grey-green leaves ; the buds in their first stage are soft
green pods. They open and the flower, lightly folded, springs out
and gradually it opens into a long bell-like trumpet about 8 inches
long gold coloured with touches of pale red. But the drawing
in the buds and the petals ! The gaiety of the edges the free-
dom with which Papa Cosmos has let himself go on them! I
have looked at this tree so long that it is transplanted to some
part of my brain for a further transplanting into a story one
day.

You must come here one day, and live here for a bit. I don't see
how you couldn't be happy. I appreciate your feeling that you
would not care to work on a large canvas in England. I feel just
the same about writing. I'm always afraid my feelings won't last
long enough for me to have expressed all that I wanted to. There's
something in the atmosphere which may blow cold. And there's
always a sense of rush a strain. If the Muse does deign to visit
me I'm conscious all the time that she's got her eye on the clock,
she's catching the funicular to Olympus at 5.30 or the special to

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Parnassus at 5.15. Whereas here, one begins to tell the time by
the skies again.

As for little K. M., she's a-going it as usual. The more I do the
more I want to do, it will always be the same. The further one
climbs the more tops of mountains one sees. But it's a matter for re-
joicing as long as one can keep the coffin from the door. I don't
care a pin about the old wolf. I must get up and take the earwigs
out of the roses. Why should they choose roses ? But they do and
I go against Nature in casting them forth.

November 1920

What you quote from Van Gogh is very fine? I would give you
it's twin sentence if I had Tchekhov's letters here. Tchekhov felt
just life that. I, too, suspect and don't feel comfortable in this
" art life." What I mean is when C. used to write me endless pages
about good and bad art I always wanted to hang my head because
I felt she wasn't wording. She wasn't really getting down to it
(don't misunderstand me) humbly.

I don't believe there are any short cuts to Art. Victory is the re-
ward of battle just exactly as it is in Life. And the more one knows
of one's " soldiers " the better chance one has. That's not an ab-
solutely true analogy tho'. The thing is more subtle.

But what I do believe with my whole soul is that one's outlooJ^
is the climate in which one's art either thrives or doesn't grow.
I am dead certain that there is no separating Art and Life. And
no artist can afford to leave out Life. If we mean to work we must
go straight to Life for our nourishment. There's no substitute.
But I am violent on this subjick. I must leave it.

I am stuck in bed by my old doctor who says I must stay
here another week at least. Pity poor little K. I hate bed. I shall
never go to bed in Heaven or eat anything off a tray. If a cherubim
and a seraphim come winging their way towards me with some
toast and jelly I shall pop like a chestnut into Hell and be roasted.

1 "... Nevertheless I find in my work a certain reverberation of what fascinated
me. I know that Nature told me something, that she spoke to me, and that I took
down her message in shorthand. Perhaps my transcript contains words that arc
undecipherable; belike there are faults and omissions in it too, still it may possess
something that the wood, the beach or the figures said."

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To J. M. Murry

About the punctuation in The Stranger. No, my dash isn't quite
a feminine dash. (Certainly when I was young it was.) But it
was intentional in that story. I was trying to do away with the three
dots. They have been so abused by female and male writers that
I fight shy of them much tho' I need them. The truth is
punctuation is infernally difficult. If I had time I'd like to write
an open letter to the A. on the subject. It's boundaries need to be
enlarged. But I won't go into it now. I'll try, however, to remem-
ber commas. It's a fascinating subject, ca, one that I'd like to talk
over with you. If only there was time I'd write all one wants to
write. There seems less and less time. And more and more books
arrive. That's not a complaint. But it is rather cursed that we

should have to worry about when we might be writing

our own books isn't it ?

And about Poison 1 I could write about that for pages. But I'll
try and condense what I've got to say. The story is told by (evi-
dently) a worldly, rather cynical (not wholly cynical) man
against himself (but not altogether) when he was so absurdly
young. You know how young by his idea of what woman is. She
has been up to now, only the vision, only she who passes. You
realise that ? And here he has put all his passion into this Beatrice.
It's promiscuous love, not understood as such by him; perfectly
understood as such by her. But you realise the vie de luxe they are
living the very table sweets, liqueurs, lilies, pearls. And you
realise? she expects a letter from someone calling her away?
Fully expects it ? That accounts for her farewell AND her declara-
tion. And when it doesn't come even her commonness peeps out
the newspaper touch of such a woman. She can't disguise her
chagrin. She gives herself away. . . . He, of course, laughs at it
now, and laughs at her. Take what he says about her " sense of
order " and the crocodile. But he also regrets the self who, dead
privately, would have been young enough to have actually wanted
to Marry such a woman. But I meant it to be light tossed off
and yet through it Oh, subtly the lament for youthful belief.
These are the rapid confessions one receives sometimes from a
glove or a cigarette or a hat.

1 See Something Childish, p. 250.

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To Sydney Schiff December i, 1920

About the Russians. I agree that translations are perfectly ter-
rible. The peculiar flatness of them is so strange and it's just that
flatness which the story or whatever it is mustn't have One
feels it's superimposed. And yet and yet though I hate to
agree with so many silly critics I confess that Tchekhov does seem
to me a marvellous writer. I do think a story like In Exile or Miss-
ing is frankly incomparable. (It's years since I read de Maupassant:
I must read him again) And then Tolstoy well, you know,
Anna's journey in the train when she finds Vronsky is travelling
to St. Petersburg too and the whole figure of Anna when I think
how real, how vital, how vivid she is to me I feel I can't be
grateful enough to Tolstoy by grateful I mean full of praise
to him for his works.

Will you lend me Marcel Proust when you come out this time ?
I don't feel qualified to speak of him.

I wonder what you'll think of this little Isola Bella. It's very
small. The windows have got little cotton velveteen trousers put
up by me in place of the dreadful little chemises that hung there
on my arrival. And I have an old servant, a butter and sugar thief
who is an artist in her way a joy. Her feeling for hot plates
and for what dear Henry James might call the real right gravy is
supreme. These things are so important. I don't think I could
love a person who liked gravylene or browno or whatever they
call it.

To ]. M. Murry December 7920

Yesterday I had your letter re the finances of the A. Really,

there is nothing to be said. has sat on the poor egg to some

purpose. . . . The picture of you was lifelike. Your very legs were
under the table. I would have known them among a million pairs.
But you have a terrible pen for these small drawings. Dear! dear!
they are so pathetical. When Mother came back from Switzerland,
1894, she bought me a tie-pin made like a violet and one shut one's
eye and looked through it at the Lion of Lucerne ! ! Your tie-pins
all are made of a diamond that's really a tear-drop. I shut one eye

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and look through at my own own little Lion and my heart
faints to see his sweet mane all in knots over his sums.

It's still freezing cold. Oh, I do feel the cold most cruelly. I can-
not keep warm. Blankets over my knees, two pairs of everything
that one has two of, a fire, soup nothing saves me. And as soon
as the sun so much as shakes his fiery head I feel better. Bogey,
when I leave here, it will be to go farther south.

I confess since I've been away this time my need or my wish for
people has absolutely fled. I don't know what it is to be lonely, and
I love to be solitary.

If my book is to be reviewed in the paper, who is to do it ? May
I have a say ? Of course you can't, and I don't want to, be-
cause I don't like her work at all at all at all. I'd prefer to have it
done by someone who'll oh, I don't know Santayana, I pre-
fer. Now I'm not being serious. I mean of course, that's only my
wicked preference. But his idea of friendship and mine are alike
that is beaucoup, isn't it ?

Did you read in the Times that Shelley left on his table a bit of
paper with a blot on it and a flung down quill? Mary S. had a
glass case put over same and carried it all the way to London on
her knees. Did you ever hear such rubbish ! ! That's her final give
away for me. Did she keep it on her knees while she ate her sand-
wiches Did everybody know ? Oh didn't they just. I've done
with her.

December. 7920

II fait beau, aujourd'hui. I am sitting in my long chair on the
terrace. The wind of the last days has scattered almost the last of
the fig leaves and now through those candle-shaped boughs I love
so much there is a beautiful glimpse of the old town. Some fowls
are making no end of a noise. I've just been for a walk on my
small boulevard and looking down below at the houses all bright
in the sun and housewives washing their linen in great tubs of
glittering water and flinging it over the orange trees to dry. Per-
haps all human activity is beautiful in the sunlight. Certainly these
women lifting their arms, turning to the sun to shake out the wet
clothes were supremely beautiful. I couldn't help feeling and

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after they have lived they will die and it won't matter. It will be
all right; they won't regret it.

A small, slender bird is pecking the blue bayberries. Birds are
much milder here, much quicker, properly on the qui vive, you
know. ... Do you mind ? I've done with England. I don't even
want to see England again. Is that awful ? I feel it is rather. I know
you will always want to go back. I am collecting possessions at an
awful rate. All my pennies go on them. . . . But they are all
movables. They can all be carried up the mountains. Wander with
me 10 years will you ? Ten years in the sun. It's not long only

10 springs. If I manage to live for 10 years I don't think I'd mind

dying at 42. ... But as to starting a theatre for 's to come to

Lord, Lord not I.

I suppose I haven't brought it off in Poison. It wanted a light,
light hand and then with that newspaper a sudden ... let me
see, lowering of it all just what happens in promiscuous love
after passion. A glimpse of staleness. And the story is told by the
man who gives himself away and hides his traces at the same
moment.

I realise it's quite a different kind to Miss Brill or The Young
Girl. (She's not " little "; in fact, I saw her big, slender, like a colt.)

Will you tell me if you see my point at all ? or do you still feel
it's no go ?

Here is an inside and an outside photograph of me in and out
of my Isola Bella. Would you like some more ? I have more here
if you'd like them. And shall I tell you the conversation which just
went on between Marie and the carpet woman? Oh, no, it's not
interesting really without the voices. Even old Marie attend Mon-
sieur now. " J'ai 1'idee, Madame, d'acheter une belle tranche de
veau alors de faire une poche dedans et de la farcer avec un peu
de jambon un oeuf " and so on and on and on die song
becoming more and more triumphant and ending " mats peut-etre

11 vaudrait mieux que nous attendons Parrivee de Monsieur pour A.
En effet un bon plat de nouilles est toujours un bon plat," and
then she puts her head on one side and says, " Monsieur aime le
veau?"

Pleased to tell you mice have made a nest in my old letters to

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L. M. Would that I could always be certain of such behaviour.
The mice in this house are upstarts.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett December 22, 1920

I wonder where you will be for Christmas. Having M. with me
has turned it into a fete. My treasured Marie is determined that
Christmas shall be kept well and bought The Mistletoe all in readi-
ness for the arrival of Monsieur. The Kitchen is a progression of
still lives from a poor dead bird leaning its tired head on a tuft of
water-cress (oh, how awful it looks!) onwards. And because the
weather is chill, blue and white weather, log fires roar in the
chimleys. This little house is a perfect darling. It's not beautiful,
it's shabby and the bedroom wall paper is baskets of pink flowers
and in the dining room there is a big corpse of a clock that some-
times at dreadful intervals and for no reason begins to chime
never to tick. But there is a feeling over everything as though it
were a real resting-place. I have taken it until the end of 1922 and
even so I'm frightened at the idea of saying goodbye to it then.
I love this country, too, more and more. It is winter now many
trees are bare, but the oranges, tangerines and lemons are all ripe ;
they burn in this clear atmosphere the lemons with gentle
flames, the tangerines with bright flashes, and the oranges sombre.
My tiny peach tree still clings to a few exquisite leaves curved
like peaches 'and the violets are just beginning.

More and more (for how long? no matter. A moment is for
ever) one lives really lives. . . .

Are you childish about the New Year? Do you feel it is a
mystery and that if your friends wish you a happy one happi-
ness does come beating its beautiful wings out of the darkness
towards you ?

To Anne Estelle Rice December 26, 7920

The parcel arrived on Xmas morning but it was a separate fete
by itself, just your letter and the two enchanting sketches. I love
them, Anne. They remind me of our spring together and the
laburnum seems hung with little laughs. If you knew how often

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I think of that time at Looe, our picnic, the white-eyed kaffir, the
midget infant hurling large pieces of Cornwall into the sea on the
beach that afternoon! It's all as clear as to-day.

But you know, don't you ? that all the times we have ever spent
together are clear like that. And here I am always sending you
greetings, always sharing things with you. I salute you in tanger-
ines and the curved petals of roscs-the and the crocus colour of
the sea and in the moonlight on the poire sauvage. Many, many
other things. It will always be so with me, however seldom I see you.
I shall just go on rejoicing in the fact of you. And loving
you and feeling in that family where Monsieur Le Beau Soleil est
notre pere nous sommes des soeurs.

I am still hard at the story-writing and still feeling that only
now do I begin to see what I want to do. I am sending you my
book. It is not a good one. I promise the next will be better but
I just wanted you to have a copy. Living solitary these last months
with a servant who is a born artist and says, " Un ou deux bananes
font plus intrigant le compotier," and who returns from market
with a basket, which just to see on the kitchen table is food for
the day, makes work a great deal easier to get at. The strain is re-
moved. At last one doesn't worry any more. And fancy one's
domestique having an idea of what work is! She won't even let
a person talk at the front door if I am working. She whispers to
them to go to la porte de la cuisine ..." parceque c'est tres
enervant pour Madame d'entendre causer quelqu'un pendant
qu'elle travaille! " It's like being in heaven with an ange gardienne.

To Richard Murry January i, 7927

I have written a huge long story of a rather new kind. 1 It's the
outcome of the Prelude method it just unfolds and opens But
I hope it's an advance on Prelude. In fact, I know it's that because
the technique is stronger It's a queer tale, though. I hope you'll
like it. ...

We had a marvellous drive up into the mountains here the other
day to a very ancient small village called Castellar. These roads
wind and wind higher and higher one seems to drive through

1 The Daughters of the Late Colonel.

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the centuries too, the boy with the oxen who stands on the hillside
with a green branch in his hand, the old women gathering twigs
among the olives the blind peasant with a wild violet pinned to
his cap all these figures seem to belong to any time And then
the tiny walled village with a great tree in the cobbled square and
the lovely young girl looking out of the window of flower pots
in the Inn it's all something one seems to have known for ever.
I could live here for years and years I mean away from what
they call " the world."

January ij, 1921

If you knew how I love hearing from you and how honoured
I am by your confidences ! Treat me as a person you have the right
to ask things of. Look here if you want anything and you
haven't the dibs come to me bang off and if I have the money
you're welcome to it without a single hesitation.

Why I am saying all this is (I see your eyes rolling and your
hair rising in festoons of amazement and I don't care!) well, why
I am saying it is that we " artists " are not like ordinary people and
there are times when to know we have a fellow workman who's
ready to do all in his power, because he loves you and believes in
you, is a nice comfortable feeling. I adore Life, but my experience
of the world is that it's pretty terrible. I hope yours will be a very
different one, but just in case . . . you'd like to shout Katherine
at any moment here she is See ?

Having got that off my chest (which is at this moment more
like a chest of super-sharp edged cutlery) let me say how I ap-
preciate all you feel about craft. Yes, I think you're absolutely
right. I see your approach to painting as very individual. Emotion
for you seems to grow out of deliberation looking long at a
thing. Am I getting at anything right? In the way a thing is
made it may be a tree or a woman or a gazelle or a dish of fruit.
You get your inspiration. This sounds a bit too simple when it is
written down and rather like "Professor Leonard The Indian
Palmist." I mean something, though. It's a very queer thing how
craft comes into writing. I mean down to details. Par example. In
Miss Brill I choose not only the length of every sentence, but even
the sound of every sentence. I choose the rise and fall of every para-

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graph to fit her, and to fit her on that day at that very moment.
After Fd written it I read it aloud numbers of times just as
one would play over a musical composition trying to get it
nearer and nearer to the expression of Miss Brill until it fitted
her.

Don't think I'm vain about the little sketch. It's only the method
I wanted to explain. I often wonder whether other writers do the
same If a thing has really come off it seems to me there mustn't
be one single word out of place, or one word that could be taken
out. That's how I AIM at writing. It will take some time to get
anywhere near there.

But you know, Richard, I was only thinking last night people
have hardly begun to write yet. Put poetry out of it for a moment
and leave out Shakespeare now I mean prose. Take the very
best of it. Aren't they still cutting up sections rather than tackling
the whole of a mind ? I had a moment of absolute terror in the
night. I suddenly thought of a living mind a whole mind
with absolutely nothing left out. With all that one knows how
much does one not know ? I used to fancy one knew all but some
kind of mysterious core (or one could). But now I believe just the
opposite. The unknown is far, far greater than the known. The
known is only a mere shadow. This is a fearful thing and terribly
hard to face. But it must be faced.

To Lady Ottoline Morrell Wednesday

February 2, 7927

M. is still here. He came back suddenly and now he is going
to England to-morrow only to arrange to leave for good. . . .
I dont know. I hope he will be happy. When he is away yes
I do miss his companionship. I miss talking with a man and its
very lonely here when he's in London for the Mountain and I
only agree when we are silent or out of each other's sight!! But I
mean to leave the Riviera as soon as possible. I've turned fright-
fully against it and the French. Life seems to me ignoble here. It
all turns on money. Everything is money. When I read Balzac
I always feel a peculiar odious exasperation because according to
him the whole of life is founded on money. But he is right. It is

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for the French. I wish the horrid old Riviera would fall into
the sea. It's just like an exhibition where every single side show
costs another sixpence. But I paid goodness knows what to
come in.

Where can one go, I wonder. Italy ?

Do tell me if you find a lovely place in Italy. ... As to Eng-
land I never want to see it again. I read M.'s letters from

and Co. and they horrify me. Did one know all the wrong people ?
Is that why nobody remains to me not one except de la
Mare whom I never knew when I was there. . . .

However, one goes on believing. Li^e might be marvellous. One
keeps faith with that belief in one's work. I've been writing of a
dance this afternoon and remembering how one polished the floor
was so thrilling that everything was forgotten. . . .

To Richard Murry February 3, 1921

I don't suppose you really realise what your two last letters to me
have been like. Well, I must say I've never had any letters to beat
them, and when you are in Paradise I hope the Lord will present
you with two brushes of comets hair in token of appreciation for
same. Paint brushes, of course, I mean. In the meantime je vous
serre le main bien fort, as they say, for them. . . . I'll take 'em
in order.

The first, I must say, was what the French newspapers call un
espece de bowl-over! Your interview with Fate (not forgetting
his Secretary) written on that beautiful leming coloured paper
was simply a proof of what you could do at this imaginative short
story writing if you really got going. Richard Murry enters the
ring and shows Kid Mansfield How to Do it. I leave the drawing
of the scene to you me in black velvet shorts with a crochet
lace collar and you in a kind of zebra tights costume. . . . Well,
dear old boy, you wiped the ring with me. Not only that I do
really think that things have taken a Turn and that J. and I have
seen our worst days. Hope so, at any rate. I think your Easter plan
is a first-rate one. It's down in my diary as a certainty. Do let's
bring itoflf ! Don't worry about the fare. When the time comes just
put your toospeg brush, pyjamas and a collar (for Sundays and
fete days) into a handkerchief and I'll send along the ticket and a

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dotted line for you to follow. Seriously a rucksack is all you'll
need. My grandpa said a man could travel all over the world with
a clean pair of socks and a rook rifle. At the age of 70 odd he
started for England thus equipped but Mother took fright and
added a handkerchief or two. When he returned he was shorn of
everything but a large watering can which he'd bought in London
for his young marrows. I don't suggest him as a Man to be Fol-
lowed, however. Already, just with the idea of you coming I've
seen you on the terrace the three of us, talking. I've packed
picnic basket and we've gone off for the day. Lunch under the
olive trees . . . and so on ... it will be awful if it doesn't come
true! We must make it. J. has a scheme to meet you in Paris and
convey you to and from the Louvre on your way.

Well, I now come to your Letter II. containing your photograph.
I love having it. You have, as Koteliansky used to say, an " ex-
tremely nice face," Richard. Being fond of you as I am I read into
it all sorts of signs of the future painter ... I believe they are
all there.

My honest opinion is that if there is a person going on the right
lines you are he. I can't tell you how right I feel you are. It
seems to me like this. There is painting and here is life we can't
separate them. Both of them have suffered an upheaval extraor-
dinary in the last few years. There is a kind of tremendous agita-
tion going on still, but so far anything that has come to the surface
seems to have been experimental, or a fluke a lucky accident.
I believe the only way to live as artists under these new conditions
in art and life is to put everything to the test for ourselves. We've
got, in the long run, to be our own teachers. There's no getting
away from that. We've got to win through by ourselves. Well, as
I see it, the only way to do that honestly, dead truthfully, shirk-
ing nothing and leaving nothing out, is to put everything to the
test; not only to face things, but really to find out of what they
are composed. How can we know where we are, otherwise ? How
can we prevent ourselves being weak in certain places? To be
thorough to be honest. I think if artists were really thorough
and honest they would save the world. It's the lack of those things
and the reverse of them that are putting a deadly blight on life.
Good work takes upon itself a Life bad work has death in it.

Well (forgive me if I'm dull, old boy), your longing for

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technical knowledge seems to me profoundly what an artist
ought to feel to-day. It's a kind of deep sign of the times rather
the Zeitgeist that's the better word. Your generation, and mine
too, has been "put off" with imitations of the real thing and
we're bound to react violently if we're sincere. This takes so long
to write and it sounds so heavy. Have I conveyed what I mean to
even. You see I too have a passion for technique. I have a passion
for making the thing into a whole if you know what I mean. Out
of technique is born real style, I believe. There are no short cuts.

But I wish you were not so far away. I wish the garden gate
flew open for you often and that you came in and out and we
talked not as in London more easily and more happily. I
shall pin the sun into the sky for every day of your holiday and at
night I shall arrange for a constant supply of the best moonlight.

To Sylvia Lynd January 1921

Your letter and your book made a sort of Fete de Saint Sylvie
of yesterday. Your lovely little letter brought you back to me so
clearly very radiant, in air blue and primrose, sitting for a mo-
ment in time on my small sofa the one which in private life is
known as " the stickleback."

Thank you very much indeed, please, for The Swallow Dive.
It is full of the most beautiful things. You turn to Beauty like a
flower to the light. (I must put it in the third person. It's easier to
say.) She fills and glows with it and is like a shining transparent
cup of praise. . . . Early morning light, I feel, with the grass still
pearled and long, slender shadows. ... If you were here I should
like to say ... " Caroline crying after she had heard of Ethel's
engagement"; "her moment of leaving her Aunt Mildred's
house for ever. . . ."; " her top of the 'bus ride "; her pink cotton
frock drifting through July in London. As to the Fall of Antioch,
I hear it, smell it, \now it as if I had played in it. But above all,
Ashleem! Your early morning description of Ashleem, Miss, took
away my breff.

Forgive an impudent woman. She's very, very serious really.
And because we are jellow-worfynen, may I say I think you some-
times know more than you say, and sometimes you say less than
you know. . . . Does that convey anything?

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Letters 1921

I find my great difficulty in writing is to learn to submit. Not
that one ought to be without resistance of course I don't mean
that. But when I am writing of * another ' I want so to lose my-
self in the soul of the other that I am not. . . .

I wish we could have a talk about writing one of these days.

Was there really a new baby in your letter ? Oh dear, some peo-
ple have all the babies in this world. And as sometimes happens to
us women just before your letter came, I found myself tossing a
little creature up in the air and saying, " Whose boy are you ? "
But he was far too shadowy, too far away to reply.

So tell me about your baby, will you ? And when I do get out of
this old bed I shall drive to the lace shop and buy a cobweb to
make a cap for himher. Farewell. May the fairies attend you.
No, dear woman, it is grim work having babies. Accept my love
and my sympathy.

To Sydney Schiff February 7927

Let me add one word to our all too brief conversation this after-
noon. Alas! what a plague is Time. No sooner has one begun to
appreciate what the other is seeing than it's as though, at a
turn of the planet he is whirled away.

The question of the Artist and his Time is, I am sure, the Ques-
tion of Questions. The artist who denies his Time, who turns away
from it even so much as the fraction of a hair is false. First, he must
be free; that is, he must be controlled by none other than his
deepest self, his truest self. And then he must accept Life, he must
submit give himself so utterly to Life that no personal qud per-
sonal self remains. Does that convey anything? It's so hard to
state. " Bitterness " is a difficult word for me to disentangle from
a sense of personal wrong a " this is what Life has done to me."
But I know you don't mean that. You mean a bigger thing the
gesture with which one turns aside to-day from what might have
been what ought to have been. There is humour in it, of a kind,
and inevitable sadness. . . .

But let me confess, Sydney. I feel something else as well and
that is Love. But that's so difficult to explain. It's not pity or rain-
bows or anything up in the air Perhaps it's feeling, feeling,
feeling.

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Letters 1921

To S. S. Koteliansfy February 79, 7921

What has happened to the inkstand with the elephants on it
mother-of-pearl, inlay or was it ivory ? Some of the inlay had
begun to come off; I fancy one of the elephants had lost an eye.

And that dim little picture of a snowy landscape hanging on
the wall in your room. Where is it now ? And where are the kittens
and the children and Christ, who looked awfully like a kitten, too,
who used to hang in the dining room ? And that leather furniture
with the tufts of horse-hair stuffing coming out ?

Where are all the hats from the hatstand ? And do you remem-
ber for how long the bell was broken. . . . Then there was the
statue on the stairs, smiling, the fair caretaker, always washing
up, the little children always falling through her door.

And your little room with the tiny mirror and the broken win-
dow and the piano sounding from outside.

Those were very nice teacups thin a nice shape and the
tea was awfully good so hot.

" At the Vienna Cafe there is good bread."

And the cigarettes. The packet done up in writing paper you
take from your pocket. It is folded so neatly at the ends like a
parcel from the chemists.

And then Slatkovsky his beard, his " glad eye " his sister,
who sat in front of the fire and took off her boot. The two girls
who came to see him the Classic Day his Father died. And the
view from your window you remember ? The typist sits there
and her hat and coat hang in the hall. Now an Indian in a turban
walks up that street opposite to the British Museum quartier.

It begins to rain. The streets are very crowded. It is dusky. Now
people are running downstairs. That heavy outer door slams. And
now the umbrellas go up in the street and it is much darker, sud-
denly. Dear friend do not think evil of me forgive me.

To March i, 1921

Don't blame your parents too much! We all had parents. There
is only one way of escaping from their influence and that is by
going into the matter with yourself scanning yourself and mak-

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ing perfectly sure of their share. It can be done. One is NEVER
free until one has done blaming somebody or praising somebody
for what is bad and good in one. Don't you feel THAT? By that
I don't mean we ought to live, each of us on our own island. On
the contrary Life is relationship it's giving and taking but
that's not quite the same thing as making others responsible is
it? There is the danger. Don't think I underestimate the enormous
power parents can have. I don't. It's staggering, it's titanic. After
all, they are real giants when we are only table high and they act
according. But like everything else in life I mean all suffering,
however great we have to get over it to cease from harking
back to it to grin and bear it and to hide the wounds. More
than that, and far more true is we have to find the gift in it. We
can't afford to waste such an expenditure of feeling; we have to
learn from it and we do, I most deeply believe, come to be
thankful for it. By saying we can't afford to ... waste . . . feel-
ing! I sound odious and cynical. I don't feel it. What I mean is.
Everything must be accepted.

I am only on nodding acquaintance with Spring. We talk from
the window. But she looks from this distance fairer than ever,
more radiant, more exquisite. It is marvellous to know the earth
is turned to the light.

To Lady Ottoline Morrell Monday

March 14, 7927

I have been in bed for six weeks with my lungs and heart; then
" They " have decided that my heart trouble is caused by a very
swollen gland which presses, with intense pain, on an artery.
This the surgeon tapped on Saturday and intends to tap 2 or 3
times again. And so on and so on and so on. L. M. is in England
pendant cette crise But I'll not go on.

The weather is really exquisite. To-day was perfection. Radiant,
crystal clear, one of those days when the earth seems to pause, en-
chanted with its beauty, when every new leaf whispers: "Am I
not heavenly fair! " The sun is quite warm. It is tame again. It
comes and curls up in your arms Beautiful Life! In spite of
everything one cannot but praise Life. I have been watching the

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peach tree outside my window from the very first moment, and
now it is all in flower and the leaves are come, small shy clusters
like linnets' wings.

Even now I can't explain. Something happened, a kind of earth-
quake that shook everything and I lost faith and touch with every-
body. I cannot write what it was. And perhaps I shall never meet
you again so that I can tell you. This is sad. Blame me if you must.
How can you do otherwise ? I expect this all sounds fantastic. I
hate people who hint at secrets in letters. You will hate this. Let
me say I was almost out of my mind with misery last year

M. is here for the moment. He goes back to England at the end
of April. His typewriter ticks away here. I have just been looking
at the Keats Memorial Volume. It is simply indescribable in its
vulgarity. But there's a letter by Keats in it so full of power,
gaiety, " fun " that it mocks the book as he would have mocked it!

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett April 20, 7927

We are wondering if that strike has really struck. There is no
way of knowing here. It must be horrible in London. Bernard
Shaw had a letter in the D.N. which explained it all away. It's a
pity he's not King. But the very sound of soldiers fills me with
horror, and as to all these pictures of young giants joining up and
saying goodbye to Daddy -the falsity of it! The waste of life
even if not a man is killed is appalling. And all the while the
trees come out and the year begins to ripen. ... If there were a
God, he'd be a queer fellow.

Here it is so cold that it might be November. We are both
frozen, we shiver all day. I get up from 115.30 and turn the
clock round so as to get back to bed more quickly. I've been
spitting blood since last Tuesday too which is horrid. It makes
one feel that while one sits at the window the house is on fire.
And the servants have gone mad or bad or both. One has com-
pletely disappeared, only her feather duster remains. She wasn't
a little one either. But I expect we shall come across her one
day. I have a fancy she is in one of the chimneys. All our flags
are pinned on Switzerland. Meadows, trees, mountings, and
kind air. I hope we shall get there in time.

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Letters 7921

To J. M. Murry Saturday

Baugy, Switzerland
May 7, 7921

I have been walking round and round this letter, treading on
my toes and waving my tail and wondering where to settle.
There's too much to say! Also, the least post card or letter penned
within view of these mountains is like presenting one's true ac-
count of one's Maker. Perhaps their effect will wear off. But at
present . . . one keeps murmuring that about cats looking at
Kings, but one feels a very small cat, sneezing, licking one's paw,
making a dab or two at one's tail in the eye of Solemn Immensi-
ties. However, the peasants don't mind, so why should I ? They
are cutting the long brilliant grass; they are wading waist high
through the field with silver stars their scythes, winking
bright in the sun over their shoulders. A cart drawn by a
cow (I'm sure it is a cow) drags over a little bridge, and the boy
driver, lying like a drunken bee on his fresh green bed, doesn't
even try to drive. It's a perfect, windless day. I'm, as you have
gathered, sitting on the balcony outside my room. The sun is
wonderfully warm, but the air is just a little too clean not to be
chill. The cleanliness of Switzerland! It is frightening. The
chastity of my lily-white bed! The waxy-fine floors! The huge
bouquet of white lilac, fresh, crisp from the laundry, in my little
salon! Every daisy in the grass below has a starched frill the
very bird-droppings are dazzling.

" But . . . this is all jolly fine, but why don't you tell me
things? Get down to it! "

I'm sorry; I'll have another try. You got my telegram? The
journey was excellent. The lits salons were horrid when they
unfolded they were covered thickly with buttons so that one felt
like a very sensitive bun having its currants put in. But it was
soon morning, and my mountains appeared as of yore with snow,
like silver light, on their tops, and beautiful clouds above, rolling
solid white masses. We passed little watery villages clinging to
the banks of rivers, it was raining, the trees dripped, and
everybody carried a gleaming umbrella. Even the fishers fished
under umbrellas, their line looked like the huge feeler of a large
water beetle. And then the rain stopped, the cows began to

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fatten, the houses had broad eaves, the women at the bookstalls
got broader and broader, and it was Switzerland.

I sat on a neat green velvet chair in Geneva for three hours.
L. M. brought tea on a tray. Do you see her, coming from afar,
holding the tray high, her head bent, a kind of reverent beam
on her face, and the smoke of the teapot rising like the smoke
of sacrifices ?

Then we mounted an omnibus train and bummelted round
the Lake. The carriage was full of Germans; I was imbedded in
huge ones. When they saw a lilac bush, Vater und die Mamma
and even little Hanse all cried: " Schon." It was very old-world.
Also they each and all read aloud the notice in the carriage
that a cabinet was provided for the convenience of passengers!
(What other earthly reason would it have been there for?) We
reached Clarens at 7. The station clock was chiming. It was a
cuckoo clock. Touching don't you think ? I was very touched.
But I didn't cry. And then a motor car, like a coffee-mill, flew
round and round the fields to Baugy. The manager, who is very
like a goldfish, flashed through the glass doors and our journey
was over. . . .

This hotel is admirable. The food is prodigious. At breakfast
one eats little white rolls with butter and fresh plum jam and
cream. At lunch one eats but no, I can't describe it. It could not
be better though. I suppose, in the fullness of time, I shall take
soup at midday, too. But at present I can only watch and listen.
. . . My rooms are like a small appartement. They are quite cut
off and my balcony is as big as another room. The sun rises in
the morning vers les sept heures, and it sets, or it begins to set (for
it takes its setting immensely seriously here) at seven in the
evening. It has no connection whatever with the South of France
sun. This is le soleil pere and she's a wanton daughter whose
name is never mentioned here.

The air is all they say. I am posing here as a lady with a weak
heart and lungs of Spanish leather-o. And so far, I confess I
hardly cough except in the morning. One mustn't be too en-
thusiastic though. Perhaps it is the hypnotic effect of knowing
one is so high up. But the air is amazing!

It's all very German. Early German. Fat little birds, tame as
can be they look as though their heads unscrewed and re-

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vealed marzipan tummies fat little children, peasants, and
I regret to say ugly women. In fact, everybody seems to me
awfully ugly. Young men with red noses and stuffy check suits
and feathers in their hats ogling young females in mackintoshes
with hats tied with ribbon under the chin! Oh Weh! Oh We hi
and if they try to be "chic" to be French it's worse still.
Legs but legs of mutton in silk stockings and powder which
one feels sure is die Mamma's icing sugar.

Of course, I quite see the difficulty of being chic in this land-
scape. I can't quite see ... yet. Perhaps a white woollen dress,
a Saint Bernard, a woollen Viking helmet with snowy wings.
And for your . . .? More wool, with your knees bare, and
boots with fringed tongues. . . . But I don't know I don't
know. . . .

I am sure you will like Switzerland. I want to tell you nicer
things. What shall I tell you ? I should like to dangle some very
fascinating and compelling young carrots before your eminent
nose. . . . The furniture of my salon is green velvet inlaid with
flesh pink satin, and the picture on the wall is Jugendidylle.
There is also an immense copper jug with lovely hearts of imita-
tion verdigris. . . .

Monday
May 9, 1921

It was a great pleasure to hear from you to-day and get your
post cards of Bandol and Aries. This time I am numbering and
keeping your letters. . . . You took me back to Graviers es-
pecially those big pebbles. They are so plain in my memory,
big, round, smooth. I see them. I am glad you saw the Allegres,
even tho' it was sad. The post cards are very impressive. So was
your desire to see a bull-fight. I rolled my eyes.

After my hymn in praise of the weather it changed on Satur-
day night, to heavy rolling mists and thick soft rain. The moun-
tains disappeared very beautifully, one by one. The lake became
grave and one felt the silence. This, instead of being depressing
as it is in the South, had a sober charm. I don't know how it is
with you; but I feel the South is not made pour le grand travail.
There is too much light. Does that sound heresy? But to work

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one needs a place (or so I find) where one can spiritually dig
oneself in. ... And I defy anybody to do that on the Riviera.
Now this morning the mist is rolling up, wave on wave, and
the pines and firs, exquisitely clear, green and violet-blue, show
the mountain sides. This grass, too, in the foreground, waving
high, with one o'clocks like bubbles and flowering fruit trees
like branches of red and white coral. One looks and one becomes
absorbed. . . . Do you know what I mean ? This outer man re-
tires and the other takes the pen. In the South it is one long fete
for the outer man. But perhaps, after your tour in Provence, you
won't be inclined to agree (I mean about its not being ideal
for working).

I feel, at present, I should like to have a small chalet, high
up somewhere, and live there for a round year, working as one
wants to work. The London Mercury came on Saturday with
my story. 1 Tell me if anybody says they like it, will you ? That's
not vanity. Reading it again, I felt it might fall dead flat. It's
so plain and unadorned. Tommy and de la Mare are the people
I'd Ufa to please. But don't bother to reply to this request, dear-
est. It's just a queer feeling after one has dropped a pebble
in. Will there be a ripple or not? . . .

What do you feel about Broomies now ? This weather, so soft,
so quiet, makes me realise what early autumn there might be.
It's weather to go and find apples to stand in the grass and
hear them drop. It's Spring and Autumn with their arms round
each other like your two little girls in Caravan.

The packet arrived safely, thank you. Your remark about Tiz
reminded me that in a paper here I read a little letter by Gaby
Deslys 2 saying that Reudel's Bath Saltrates made her feet " feel
so nice." A little laughing picture and a bright string of bebe
French. I felt, if I went on reading there'd come a phrase, " Quand
on est mort, tu sais. . . ."

To Anne Estelle Rice May ig2i

If I were in Paris wouldn't I fly to where you were! It's so
perfect of you even to think I'm there. I feel as though I was.

1 The Daughters of the Late Colonel.

2 Gaby Deslys had died shortly before.

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Or at least that for two quite inferior pins I could pack up and
go. But chcre at the moment I can only walk from the
kerridge. Can't mount a stair can't do anything, but lie in a
chaise longue looking at mountains that make one feel one is
living in the Eye of the Lord. It is all temporary I am full of
beans and full of fight but unfortunately, darling, I'm full
of bacilli too. Which is a bother. If you came here I'd simply have
such a laugh about it that this rotten old chaise longue would
break its Swiss legs. Instead, I'm waiting for Docteur Figli
(good name, that!) and I've got a very nice booklet of informa-
tion to give him about two little guineas that have just died for
my sake. The number of guinea pigs, Anne, that I've mur-
dered ! So that, my precious dear, is that. Paris might be might
very well be, la pleine lune for me.

I left my dear little Isola Bella last week. The South of France
is fever to the feverish. That's my experience. Adorable pays.
I'll go back there one day but sans un thermometre. Switzerland,
which I've always managed to avoid, is the very devil. I knew it
would be. I mean, the people are so UGLY; they are simply
hideous. They have no shape. All the women have pear-shaped
derricrcs, ugly heads, awful feet. All the men wear ready-made
check flannelette suits, six sizes too small and felt hats another
six sizes too small, with a little pre-war feather sticking up be-
hind. Curse them. And the FOOD. It's got no nerves. You know
what I mean? It seems to lie down and wait for you; the very
steaks are meek. There's no contact between you and it. You're
not attracted. You don't feel that keenness to meet it and know
more of it and get on very intimate terms. The asparagus is always
stone dead. As to the puree de pommes de terre, you feel in-
clined to call it " uncle." Now I had food in the South that made
me feel should there be a Paradise you and I shall have one
lunch cooked by my old Marie which will atone for years of
not meeting. And then, Anne, Switzerland is revoltingly clean.
My bed it's enough to unmake any man, the sight of it. Dead
white tucked in so tight that you have to insert yourself like
a knife into an oyster. I got up the first night and almost whim-
pering, like Stepan in The Possessed, I put my old wild jackall
skin over the counterpane. But this cleanliness persists in every-
thing. Even the bird-droppings on the terrasse are immaculate

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and every inch of lilac is crisp home from the laundry. It's a
cursed country. And added to this there are these terrific moun-
tains.

However, darling, I believe it is the only place where they do
give one back one's wings. And I can't go on crawling any
longer. It's beyond a joke.

I shan't stay here at this hotel long, so my London address is
best. The sight of distant Montreux is altogether too powerful.
As to the people in this hotel, it is like a living cemetery. I never
saw such deaders. I mean belonging to a bygone period. Collar
supports (do you remember them?) are the height of fashion here
and hairnets and silver buckles and button boots. Face powder
hasn't been invented yet.

It's a queer world, but in spite of everything, darling, it's a rare,
rare joy to be alive and I salute you -and it and kiss you
both together but you I kiss more warmly.

To /. M. Murry May 7921

Read this criticism. It takes the bisquito. But why a half-brick
at me ? They do hate me, those young men. The Sat. Review said
my story [The Daughters of the Late Colonel} was "a dismal
transcript of inefficiency." What a bother! I suppose that, living
alone as I do, I get all out of touch and what seems to me even
lively is ghostly glee. . . .

I like these two torn pages written at such a terrific lick
funny long y's and g's tearing along like fishes in a river when
you are wading.

I was not honest about " not facing facts." Yes, I do believe
one ought to face facts. If you don't, they get behind you and
may become terrors, nightmares, giants, horrors. As long as one
faces them one is top-dog. The trouble is not to steel oneself
to face them calmly, easily to have the habit of facing them.
I say this because I think nearly all my falsity has come from not
facing facts as I should have done, and it's only now that I am
beginning to learn to face them.

374

Letters 1921

Thursday
May 12, 7927

The inventory came from Pope's last night. . . . The list of
our furniture would make any homme de cccur weep.

i Tin Box Doll's Tea Service.

1 China Figure of Sailor.

2 Liqueur decanters,
i Liqueur glass.

3 Light Dresden Girandole,
i Glass Bowl.

9 Paper Knives.

Doesn't it sound a heavenly dustbin ? Did you know there was
a Fluted Compot ? and a Parian Flower Jar ?

Since my first letter the mountains have been mobled kings.
They have un-mobled themselves to-day. ... Is it to be post
cards, post cards all the way ?

Saturday Evening
May 7927

I am rather conscious that my letters have fallen off just these
last days. Specially so since this evening I have read yours written
at Oxford on Thursday. You know how it is when just the letter
you get is the letter you would love to get. That was my experi-
ence with this one of yours. I dipped into that remote Oxford
and discovered you there. Heard that click of the cricket ball
and I saw the trees and the grass. I was with you, standing by you,
not saying anything, but happy.

The reason why I haven't written is that I am fighting a kind
of Swiss chill.

All day, in the sun, the men have been working in the vine-
yards. They have been hoeing between the vines, and then an old
man has been dusting certain rows with powder out of a Giant
Pepper-pot. The heat has been terrific. The men have worn
nothing but cotton trousers. Their bodies are tanned almost red
brown a very beautiful colour. And every now and then they
stop work, lean on their pick, breathe deeply, look round. I feel
I have been watching them for years. Now the day is over; the

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"Letters 1921

shadows are long on the grass. The new trees hold the light and
wisps of white cloud move dreamily over the dreaming moun-
tains. It is all very lovely. . . .

How hot is it in England? Here it is really as C. would
say almost tropical. The nights are hot too. One lies with both
windows open, and my toes as usual, get thirsty. . . .

Thank you for Tchekhov. Came to-night, I am simply capti-
vated by Chaucer just now. I have had to throw a bow window
into my coeur petit to include him with Shakespeare. Oh, dear!
His Troilus and CressidU And my joy at finding your remarks
and your pencil-notes.

I read to-day The Tale of Chaunticleer and Madame Perlicote:
it's the Pardouner's tale. Perfect in its way. But the personality
the reality of the man. How his impatience, his pleasure, the very
tone rings through. It's a deep delight to read. Chaucer and
Marlowe are my two at present. I don't mean there's any com-
parison between them. But I read Hero and Leander last night.
That's incredibly lovely. But how extremely amusing Chap-
man's finish is ! Taking up that magical poem and putting it into
a bodice and skirt. It's v. funny.

Thursday
May 1921

Of course, I remember old Grundy. It was Goodyear's laugh
I heard when I read his name a kind of snorting laugh, ending
in a chuckle and then a sudden terrific frown and he got very
red. Do you remember ? And you remember the stick he brought
from Bombay ? He was very pleased with that stick. Your men-
tion of G. gave me Goodyear again living, young, a bit careless
and worried, but enjoying the worry, in the years before the
war, when a pale moon shone above Piccadilly Circus and we
three stood at the comer and didn't want to separate or to go
home. . . .*

I went out yesterday in a Swiss kerridge to see M. The Swiss
kerridge was a rare old bumper, and the driver who weighed
about eighteen stone leaped into the air and then crashed back
on to the seat. It was raining. A massive hood was down. I could

1 For Frederick Goodyear see the Journal, p. 58.

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"Letters 1921

just put forth a quivering horn from beneath it. Montreux is
very ugly and quite empty. But in the shops the people are awfully
nice. They are simple, frank, honest beyond words and kind in
the German way. The thing about Switzerland is that there is
absolutely no de luxe. That makes an enormous difference. It's
simply not understood. And one is not expected to be rich. One
isn't expected to spend. This is very pleasant indeed. I suppose
there is a sort of surface scum of what the Daily Mail calls the
" Jazzing World," but it doesn't touch the place. To put it into
a gnut shell, there simply is no fever no fret. The children
are really beautiful. I saw a baby boy yesterday who took my
breath away. He was a little grub in a blue tunic with a fistful
of flowers but his eyes! his colour! his health! You want to
lie in the grass here and have picnics. Monte Carlo is not in
the same world. It's another planet almost.

Sunday
May 1921

I got back from Sierre at about 7.30 last night. I rather wish
I hadn't sent you that little note from there. It was no confused.
Tear it up. . . . While I write a man is playing the zither so
sweetly and gaily that one's heart dances to hear. It's a very
warm, still day.

Will you please look at this picture of the lake at Sierre? Do
you like it ? It's lovely really it is. If we spend a year here in
Switzerland I don't think you will regret it. Yesterday gave
me such a wonderful idea of it all. I feel I have been through
and through Switzerland. And up there, at Sierre, and in the
tiny mountain towns on the way to Sierre it is absolutely unspoilt.
I mean it's so unlike so remote from the Riviera in that
sense. There are no tourists to be seen. It is a whole complete
life. The only person I could think of meeting was Lawrence
before the war. The only thing which is modern (and this makes
me feel the Lord is on our side) is the postal service: it is excellent
everywhere in Switzerland, even in the villages. There are two
posts a day everywhere. As to telegrams, they simply fly and
your letter posted 8.30 P.M. on May i2th arrived here 9.30
A.M. May i4th. All these remarks are, again, of the carrot family.

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I heard there are any number of small chalets to be had in Sierre
and in Montana. We should take one don't you think? and
have a Swiss bonne. As to cream-cows, they abound. And* the
whole country-side is full of fruit and of vines. It's famous for
its small grapes, and for a wine which the peasants make. The
father brews for his sons, and the sons for their sons. It's drunk
when it's about 20 years old, and I believe it is superb.

Queer thing is that all the country near Sierre is like the Middle
Ages. There are ancient tiny castles and small round wooded
knolls, and the towns are solid, built round a square. Yesterday
as we came to one part of the valley it was a road with a solid
avenue of poplars, a green wall on either side little wooden
carts came spanking towards us. The man sat on the shafts. The
woman, in black, with a flat black hat, earrings and a white ker-
chief, sat in front with the children. Nearly all the women
carried huge bunches of crimson peonies, flashing bright. A
stream of these little carts passed, and then we came to a town
and there was a huge fair going on in the market square. In the
middle people were dancing, round the sides they were buying
pigs and lemonade, in the cafes under the white and pink flower-
ing chestnut trees there were more people, and at the windows
of the houses there were set pots of white narcissi and girls looked
out. They had orange and cherry handkerchiefs on their heads.
It was beyond words gay and delightful. Then further on we
came to a village where some fete was being arranged. The square
was hung with garlands and there were cherry-coloured masts
with flags flying from them and each mast had a motto framed in
leaves AMITIE TRAVAIL HONNEUR DEVOIR.
All the men of the village in white shirts and breeches were string-
ing more flags across and a very old man sat on a heap of logs
plaiting green branches. He had a huge pipe with brass fittings.

Oh dear in some parts of the Rhone valley there are deep,
deep meadows. Little herd boys lie on their backs or their bellies
and their tiny white goats spring about on the mountain slopes.
These mountains have little lawns set with trees, little glades
and miniature woods and torrents on the lower slopes, and all
kinds of different trees are there in their beauty. Then come the
pines and the firs, then the undergrowth, then the rock and the
snow. You meet tiny girls all alone with flocks of blac^ sheep

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or herds of huge yellow cows. Perhaps they are sitting on the
bank of a stream with their feet in the water, or peeling a wand.
And the houses are so few, so remote. I don't know what it is,
but I think you would feel as I did, deeply pleased at all this. I
like to imagine (am I right?) that you will muse as you read:
Yes, I could do with a year there. . . . And you must know
that from Sierre we can go far and wide in no time. I believe
the flowers are in their perfection in June and July, and again the
Alpine flora in September and October.

I see a small white chalet with a garden near the pine forests.
I see it all very simple, with big white china stoves and a very
pleasant woman with a tanned face and sun-bleached hair bring-
ing in the coffee. I see winter snow and a load of wood arriv-
ing at our door. I see us going off in a little sleigh with huge
fur gloves on, and having a picnic in the forest and eating ham
and fur sandwiches. Then there is a lamp trts important
there are our books. It's very still. The frost is on the pane. You
are in your room writing. I in mine. Outside the Stars are shining
and the pine trees are dark like velvet.

I was not surprised at . He's so uncertain at present, I mean

in his own being, that it will come natural to him to pose. I don't
know how far you realise that you make him what he is with you

or how different he is with others. Also at present he has no
real self-respect and that makes him boast. Like all of us he wants
to feel important and that's a right feeling we ought to feel
important but while he remains undisciplined and dans le
vague he cant be important. So he has to boast. I mustn't go on.
You are calling me a schoolmistress. . . .

To Anne Estelle Rice Thursday

May 19, 1921

I must write to you once again, darling woman, while you are
in Paris. Anne, if I were not to hear from you again ever I could
live on your last letter. To have taken the trouble I know what
writing means to have sent me that whole great piece of Paris

complete, with yourself and the traffic (I'd love to be some-
where where taxis ran one over) and marble tops and Louise
avec son plumeau, and the shops with the flowery saucissons,

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and that getting le petit dejeuner, and Wyndham Lewis and
well I walked through your letter once and then I just idled
through it again and took my time and stopped to look and
admire and love and smell and hear it all. It was a great gift,
my dearest Anne it was un cadeau superbe pour moi. How
I love you for doing just that! Do you feel I do? You must. Now
I've been to Paris and even to St. Cloud. For your idea of a
house there started me dreaming of the house next door. Charm-
ing houses two storied with lilac bushes at the gate. I made a
hole in my fence big enough for an eye to flash through and
in the morning I spied through and called to the petit who was
gardening, " David," and he said, rather off hand, " Quoi ? "
And I said, " Will you come to tea with me to-day ? " And he
turned his back on me and shouted up at his own house, " She
wants me to go to tea." At that your head appeared at a window
and you said: " Well, do you want to go ? " David replied: " Well,
what have we got for tea here ? "... It was an awfully sweet
dream. I wish it would come true. What fun we should have!
In the evening there would be a lamp on the garden table. I see
a whole, lovely life and more my life than cafes nowadays.

All the same, Paris and London have their appeal. It's very
good to talk at times and I love watching and listening. These
mountains are crushing table companions. But all the same I lie
all day looking at them and they are pretty terrific. ... If you
could get them into the story, you know get them " place."

I saw the biggest specialist in Switzerland on Saturday, Anne.
That's what made your letter so wonderfully good just at the
moment. It seemed to bring Life so near again. After I'd seen
this man it was just as if the landscape everything changed
a little moved a little further off. I always expect these doctor
men to say: " Get better? Of course you will. Will put you right
in no time. Six months at the very most and you'll be fit as a
fiddle again." But though this man was extremely nice he would
not say more than " I still had a chance." That was all. I tried
to get the word " Gueri " but it was no good. All I could wangle
out of him was " If your digestion continues good, you still have
a chance."

It's an infernal nuisance to love life as I do. I seem to love it
more as time goes on rather than less. It never becomes a habit

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to me it's always a marvel. I do hope I'll be able to keep in it
long enough to do some really good work. I'm sick of people
dying who promise well. One doesn't want to join that crowd at
all. So I shall go on lapping up jaunes d'oeufs and de la
creme. . . .

It's evening now. I expect the lights are just out in the streets.
I see the round shadows of the trees, the warm white of the pave-
ment. I see the people flitting by. And here in the lake the moun-
tains are bluish cold. Only on the high tops the snow is a faint
apricot colour. Beautiful Life! " To be alive and that is enough."
I could almost say that, but not quite.

To Sydney and Violet Sc/riff Saturday

May 21, 1921

Many thanks for your letter. I want to write to you; I shall as
soon as I've got over this chill. At present I am in the very middle
of it.

The place is marvellous; the doctors incredibly, fantastically,
too hopelessly maddening. They will speak English, too. If I
could only give you an imitation of the one who has just left me.
" Dere is nudding for it but lie in de bed eat and tink of
naice tings "... He wore a little tiny straw hat too, and brown
cotton gloves. . . . What is one to do dearest? To shoot or
not to shoot. . .

To J. M, Murry May 1921

You ask me how I am. ... I am much the same. This chill
has been the worst I have ever had since I was ill, and so I feel
weak and rather shadowy physically. My heart is the trouble.
But otherwise I feel . . . well . . . it's difficult to say. No, one
can't believe in God. But I must believe in something more nearly
than I do. As I was lying here to-day I suddenly remembered
that: " O ye of little faith! " Not faith in a God. No, that's impos-
sible. But do I live as though I believe in anything ? Don't I live in
glimpses only? There is something wrong, there is something
small in such a life. One must live more fully and one must have
more power of loving and feeling. One must be true to one's

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vision of life in every single particular and I am not. The
only thing to do is to try again from to-night to be stronger and
better to be whole.
That's how I am. . . . Goodnight.

May 1921

The people whom we read as we read Shakespeare are part
of our daily lives. I mean it doesn't seem to me QUEER to be
thinking about Othello at bregchick or to be wondering about the
Phoenix and the Turtle in my bath. It's all part of a whole. Just
as that vineyard below me is the vineyard in the Song of Solomon,
and that beautiful sound as the men hoe between the vines is
almost part of my body, goes on in me. I shall never be the same
as I was before I heard it, just as I'll never be the same as I was
before I read the Death of Cleopatra. One has willingly given
oneself to all these things one is the result of them all. Are
you now saying "intellectual detachment"? But I've allowed
for that.

Other people I mean people to-day seem to look on in a
way I don't understand. I don't want to boast. I don't feel at all
arrogant, but I do feel they have not perhaps lived as fully as we
have. . . . However. . . . Did you know that Turgenev's brain
pesait deux mille grammes? Horrible idea! I couldn't help seeing
it au beurre hoir when I read that. I shall never forget that brain
at Isola Bella. It was still warm from thinking. Ugh!

I shall be very, very glad to see you. I have a mass of things
to talk about. " The great artist is he who exalts difficulty "
do you believe that ? And that it's only the slave (using slave in
our mystical sense) who pines for freedom. The free man, the
artist, seeks to bind himself. No, these notes aren't any good. But
I have been finding out more and more how true it is that it's
only the difficult thing that is worth doing; it's the difficult thing
that one deliberately chooses to do. I don't think Tchekhov was
as aware of that as he should have been. Some of the stories in
The Horse-Stealers are rather a shock.

Tell me (I've changed my pen and my sujet), how is this?
There is no Saint Galmier here, only Eau de Montreux, which,
according to the bottle, is saturated with carbonic acid gas. But

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my physiology book said that carbonic acid gas was a deadly
poison: we only breathed it out, but never, except at the last
desperate moment, took it in. And here are Doctors Schnepsli,
Rittchen and Knechloo saying it's a sovereign cure for gravel.
It is all so very difficult, as Constantia would say.

Don't walk on both sides of the street at once. It distracts
people and makes it difficult for them to continue the conversa-
tion.

Tuesday, 4.30 P.M.
May 7927

I never read anything about a child more exquisite than your
little girl's remark " II pleut " when someone put a sunshade up.
It's the most profound thing about a very young baby's vision
of the world I've ever struck. It's what babies in prams thin\.
It's what you say long before you talf(. She's altogether a ravish-
ing person no, so much more than that. She is a tiny vision
there in those gardens for ever. The tenderness is perfect it's
so true.

I am writing in the thick of a thunder-storm. They are regular
items now in the late afternoon. It gets misty, the birds sound
loud, it smells of irises and then it thunders. I love such summer
storms. I love hearing the maids run in the passages to shut the
windows and draw up the blinds, and then you see on the road
between the vineyards people hurrying to take shelter. Besides,
I've such a great part of the sky to see that I can watch the be-
ginning, the middle and the end.

Tuesday

Know that goldfinch I have tamed ? He comes right into my
bedroom now and eats breakfast crumbs beside the bed. He is a
ravishing little bird. If only he were carpet-trained. But I'm
afraid you can't train birds. He seems just as surprised as I am.
The sparrows, now that he has come in, grow bold and come as
far as the parquet, too. But I won't have them. I aspire to having
taught this goldfinch to present arms with my founting pen
by the time you come to do you honour. I also dream of its

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singing an address of welcome holding the address, you know,
in one claw.

During the past two nights I have read The Dynasts. Isn't it
queer how a book eludes one, and then suddenly opens for you ?
I have looked into this book before now. But the night before
last when I opened it I suddenly understood what the poet meant,
and how he meant it should be read ! The point of view which is
like a light streaming from the imagination and over the imagina-
tion over one's head as it were the chorus and the aerial
music. I am talking carelessly, because I am talking to you, and
I am relying on you to more than understand me. But it did
seem to me that if the poetic drama is still a possible " form "
it will be, in the future, like The Dynasts As if for the stage
and yet not to be played. That will give it its freedom. Now when
one reads The Dynasts it's always as though it were on the
stage. . . . But the stage is a different one it is within us. This
is all trs vague. ... I long to talk about it.

Here I stopped. The doctor came. It's really funny. I must tell
you. My chill is slightly better, but I have symptoms of whooping
cough! // ne manquait que fa.

To Lady Ottoline Morrell May 7921

One can't be really happy if one's body refuses to " join in,"
if it persists in going its own way and never letting one forget
it. But how is one to get cured? As to doctors there aren't
any. I have just paid little B. 2,000 francs for looking after me
and I'm 50 times worse than I was at Christmas. They know
nothing. I had two really deadly experiences here with perfect
fools and after all this long time they depressed me so much
that I felt desperate and I motored off to Montana to see the
specialist there. He's supposed to be the best man in Switzerland
for lungs. He was better than the others and I am going to be
under him in future. I don't know for how long. It's very vague.
He would not say I can get better. All he would say was I still
have a chance and he has known patients with lungs as far gone
as mine who have recovered. I really don't mind a straw. It was
a divine day the day I met him and the strange ancient room
in an old hotel where we talked was so beautiful that the moment

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was enough. One must live for the moment, that is all I feel now.
When he explained how the left lung was deeply engaged but the
right was really the dangerous one I wanted to say: " Yes, but do
listen to the bees outside. I've never heard such bees. And there's
some delicious plant growing outside the window. It reminds me
of Africa "

But my health is such a frightfully boring subject that I won't
talk about it.

Life in this hotel is a queer experience. I have two rooms and a
balcony so I am thank Heaven quite cut off. They are
corner rooms, too. But I descend for the meals step into the
whirlpool and really one sees enough, hears enough at them,
to last one for ever. I have never imagined such people. I think
they are chiefly composed of Tours they are one composite per-
son, being taken round for so much a week. It's hard to refrain
from writing about them. But my balcony looks over Montreux
and Clarens. Anything more hideous ! ! I think Switzerland has the
very ugliest houses, people, food, furniture, in the whole world.
There's something incredible in the solid ugliness of the people.
The very newspapers full of advertisements for a " magnificent
pore " or a batterie de cuisine comprising 75 pieces are typical.
And the grossness of everything. I can't stand the narcissi even. I
feel there are too many and the scent is too cheap. Yesterday L. M.
who is staying at a place called Blonay brought me a bunch of lilies
of the valley an immense cauliflower it looked like, and smelt
like.

But I must say the country round Sierre is simply wonderful.
That's where I'd like to be. It's so unspoilt, too. I mean there are
no Casinos, no tea shops and as far as I could see from my glimpse
not a tourist to be seen. I shall go there at the end of June when
Murry has joined me. I feel so remote, so cut off from everything
here. ... I can't walk at all. I lie all day in the shade and write
or read and that's all. Work is the only thing that never fails.
Even if people don't like my stories I don't mind. Perhaps they will
one day or the stories will be better. I've been reading Chaucer.
Have you read his Troilus and Cressid lately ? It is simply perfect.
I have a passion for Chaucer just now. But England seems to think
Miss Romer Wilson is so much the greatest writer that ever was
born. She does sound wonderful, I must say. Is it all true ?

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June 1921

I am leaving here to-morrow. If I look down upon Montreux
another day I shall fly into pieces with rage at the ugliness of it all.
It's like a painting on a mineral water bottle Bailment des Eaux.
And then along the road that winds through (I must say lovely)
vines go these awful, ugly people, and one can't help looking at
them. Never have I seen such ugliness. Father, with a straw hat
on the back of his head, coat off, waistcoat unbuttoned and stiff
shirt showing, marches ahead and Mother follows with her
enormous highly respectable derriere and after them tag the little
Swisses Oh! Oh!! Oh!!!

Matters have reached a crisis too, as these last two days there has
been the Fete des Narcisses. Hoards of uglies rushing by on bicycles
with prodigious bunches of these murdered flowers on the
handle-bars, all ready for the fray. Happily, it rained and became
a Fete des Ombrelles instead. I think from the expression of the
company homeward bound the umbrellas had been thrown as
well!

To me, though, the symbol of Switzerland is that large middle-
class female behind. It is the most respectable thing in the world.
It is Matchless. Everyone has one in this hotel; some of the elderly
ladies have two.

I think Sierje may be better and there one is, at least, in reach of
forests and tumbling rivers. The man from Montana who is go-
ing to keep an Eye on me is near too, but thinking him over (as
one does), I believe he's no better than the rest of them and he
overcharged me horribly. I shall pin my faith on forests. Bother
all doctors!

I know I ought to love and she is such a " brick," as they say.

But when that brick comes flying in my direction Oh, I DO want
to dodge it!

I read less and less, or fewer and fewer books. Not because I
don't want to read them, I do but they seem so high up on the
tree. It's so hard to get at them and there is nobody near to help.
. . . On my bed at night there is a copy of Shakespeare, a copy of
Chaucer, an automatic pistol and a black muslin fan. This is my
whole little world.

I have just finished a new story which I'm going to send on
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speck to the Mercury. I hope someone will like it. Oh, I have en-
joyed writing it.

To Richard Murry Chateau Belle Vue,

Sierre, Valais

June 20, 7927

I answer your letter bang off. But so many thoughts go chasing
through my head (do you see them ? the last thought, rather slow,
on a tricycle!) and there are so many things I'd like to talk over
that it's not as easy as it sounds. . . . You know it's queer I
feel so confident about you always. I feel that, the way you are
building your boat, no harm can come to it. It will sail. You're
building for the high seas, and Once you do take her out nothing
will stop her.

About the old masters. What I feel about them (all of them
writers too, of course) is the more one lives with them the better
it is for one's work. It's almost a case of living into one's ideal
world the world that one desires to express. Do you know what
I mean ? For this reason I find that if I stick to men like Chaucer
and Shakespeare and Marlowe and even Tolstoy I keep much
nearer what I want to do than if I confuse things with reading a
lot of lesser men. I'd like to make the old masters my daily bread

in the sense in which it's used in the Lord's Prayer, really to
make them a kind of essential nourishment. All the rest is well

it comes after.

I think I understand exactly what you mean by " visionary con-
sciousness." It fits the writer equally well. It's mysterious and it's
difficult to get into words. There is this world, and there is the
world that the artist creates in this world, which is nevertheless his
world, and subject to his laws his " vision." Does that sound
highflown ? I don't mean it to be. It's difficult to get over, in a let-
ter, a smile or a look or a something which makes it possible to
say these things when one's with a person without that person
feeling you are a bit of a priglet. . . .

J. told me you were working at technique. So am I. It's extraor-
dinarily difficult don't you find ? My particular difficulty is a kind
of fertility which I suspect very much. It's not solid enough.
But I go at it every day. It's simply endlessly fascinating.

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Letters 1921

We are leaving here at the end of this week and creeping by
funicular up to Montana. There I hope we shall stay for the next
two years. We have our eye on a chalet called Les Sapins which is
in the midst of the forests pine forests there's not even a fence
or a bar between it and the trees. So you picture the wolves breath-
ing under the front door, the bears looking through our keyhole
and bright tigers dashing at the lighted window panes. Montana is
on a small plateau ringed round by mountains. I'll tell you more
about it when we get there. J. has been up twice. He says it's the
best place he's ever seen.

This place, Sierre, is in a valley. It's only 1,500 feet high very
sheltered. Fig trees grow big, vines are everywhere; large flowery
trees shake in the light. Marvellous light Richard and small
lakes, bright, clear blue, where you can swim. Switzerland makes
us laugh. It's a comic country: the people are extraordinary, like
comic pictures and they are dead serious about it all. But there is
something fine in it, too. They are " simple," unspoilt, honest and
real democrats. The 3rd-class passenger is just as good as the ist-
class passenger in Switzerland and the shabbier you are the less
you are looked at. No one expects you to be rich or to spend money.
This makes life pleasant very. They are not at all beautiful
people; the men are very thick, stiff, ugly in the German way, and
the women are nearly all dead plain. But seen from afar, in the
fields, against mountains, they are all well in the picture. The
Spring is a good time here. I arrived just as the field flowers were
out; now the hay is gathered and the grapes are formed on the
vines. I can't say, Richard, how I love the country. To watch the
season through, to lose myself in love of the earth that is life
to me. I don't feel I could ever live in a city again. First the bare
tree then the buds and the flowers, then the leaves, then the small
fruit forming and swelling. If I only watch one tree a year one is
richer for life.

To William Gerhardi June 23, 7921

I cannot tell you how happy I am to know that The Daughters of
the Late Colonel has given you pleasure. While I was writing that
story I lived for it but when it was finished, I confess I hoped very

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much that my readers would understand what I was trying to ex-
press. But very few did. They thought it was " cruel "; they thought
I was " sneering " at Jug and Constantia; or they thought it was
" drab." And in the last paragraph I was " poking fun at the poor
old things."

It's almost terrifying to be misunderstood. There was a mo-
ment when I first had " the idea " when I saw the two sisters as
amusing; but the moment I looked deeper (let me be quite frank)
I bowed down to the beauty that was hidden in their lives and to
discover that was all my desire. ... All was meant, of course, to
lead up to that last paragraph, when my two flowerless ones turned
with that timid gesture, to the sun. " Perhaps now . . ." And after
that, it seemed to me, they died as surely as Father was dead.

To Lady Ottoline Morrett Chalet des Sapins

Montana-sur-Sicrrc
July 24, 1921

Here it is simply exquisite weather. We are so high up (5,000
feet above the sea) that a cool breeze filters through from Heaven,
and the forests are always airy. . . I can't imagine anything lovelier
than this end of Switzerland. Once one loses sight of that hideous
Lac Leman and Co. everything is different. Sierre, a little warm
sunripe town in the valley, was so perfect that I felt I would like
to live there. It has all the flowers of the South and it's gay and
" queynt " and full of nightingales. But since we have come up
the mountains it seems lovelier still. We have taken a small
not very small chalet here for two years. It is quite remote
in a forest clearing; the windows look over the tree tops across a
valley to snowy peaks the other side. The air feels wonderful but
smells more wonderful still. I have never lived in a forest before, one
steps out of the house and in a moment one is hidden among the
trees. And there are little glades and groves full of flowers with
small ice-cold streams twinkling through. It is my joy to sit there on
a tree trunk; if only one could make some small grasshoppery
sound of praise to someone thanks to someone. But who ?

M. and I live like two small time-tables. We work all the morn-
ing and from tea to supper. After supper we read aloud and smoke ;
in the afternoon he goes walking and I crawling. The days seem

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to go by faster and faster. One beaming servant who wears peasant
" bodies " and full skirts striped with velvet looks after everything.
And though the chalet is so arcadian it has got a bathroom with hot
water and central heating for the winter and a piano and thick
carpets and sunblinds. I am too old not to rejoice in these creature
comforts as well.

The only person whom we see is my Cousin Elizabeth who
lives half an hour's scramble away. We exchange Chateaubriand
and baskets of apricots and have occasional lovely talks which
are rather like wliat talks in the after-life will be like, I imagine
. . . ruminative, and reminiscent although dear knows what
it is really all about. How strange talking is what mists rise and
fall how one loses the other and then thinks to have found the
other then down comes another soft final curtain. . . . But it is
incredible don't you feel how mysterious and isolated we
each of us are at the last. I suppose one ought to make this dis-
covery once and for all, but I seem to be always making it again.

It seems to me that writers don't acknowledge it half enough.
They pretend to know all there is in the parcel. But how is one
to do it without seeming vague ?

Some novels have been flying up our mountain side lately. . . .
I wish a writer would rise up a new one a really good one.

I keep on with my short stories. I have been doing a series for
The Sphere, because it pays better than any other paper I know.
But now they are done I don't believe they are much good. Too
simple. It is always the next story which is going to contain every-
thing, and that next story is always just out of reach. One seems to
be saving up for it. I have been reading Shakespeare as usual. The
Winters Tale again. All the beginning is very dull isn't it?
That Leontes is an intolerable man and I hate gentle Hermione.
Her strength of mind, too, in hiding just round the corner from
him for 15 years is terrifying! But Oh the Shepherd scene is too
perfect. Now I am embedded in Measure for Measure. I had no
idea it was so good. M. reads aloud in the evenings and we ma{e
notes. There are moments when our life is rather like a school for
two! I see us walking out crocodile for two and correcting each
other's exercises. But no not really.

Is this a Fearfully dull letter? I'm afraid it is. I'm afraid " Kath-
erine has become so boring nowadays."

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To the Hon. Dorothy Brett July 29, 7927

I tremendously enjoyed that long letter. I had been out with M.
down the road a little way and then across a stream and into the
forest. There are small glades and lawns among the trees filled with
flowers. I sat under a big fir and he went gathering. It was a daz-
zling bright day, big silvery clouds pressing hard on the moun-
tain tops, not even the cotton grass moving. Lying on the moss
I found minute strawberry plants and violets and baby fir cones,
all looked faery and M. moved near and far calling out when
he found anything special. . . . Then he disappeared down into
a valley and I got up and explored the little fir parlours and sat
on the stumps and watched ants and wondered where that apricot
stone had come from. These forests are marvellous: one feels as
though one were on a desert island somehow. As to the butterflies
and golden and green dragon-flies and big tawny bumble bees,
they are a whole population. M. came back with a huge bunch of
treasures and I walked home and found your letter in the hall.
So I sat down on the bottom step of the stairs with the flowers in
a wet hanky beside me and read it. Don't you think the stairs
are a good place for reading letters ? I do. One is somehow sus-
pended one is on neutral ground not in one's own world, not
in a strange one. They are an almost perfect meeting place oh
Heavens! how stairs do fascinate me when I think of it. Waiting
for people sitting on strange stairs hearing steps from above,
watching the light playing by itself hearing far below a door,
looking down into a kind of dim brightness, watching someone
come up. But I could go on for ever.

Must put them in a story though ! People come out of themselves
on stairs they issue forth, unprotected. And then the window
on a landing. Why is it so different to all other windows ? I must
stop this . . .

I am deeply interested in what you feel about Manet. For years
he has meant more to me than any other of those French painters.
He satisfies something deep in me. There is a kind of beautiful
real maturity in his painting, as though he had come into his
own, and it is a rich heritage. I saw a reproduction of a very lovely
Renoir the other day, a young woman profile a three-quarter
with the arm lazily outstretched, lovely throat, bosom, shoulder

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such grace. But I think that in his later paintings he is so often
muzzy. I can't appreciate the queer woolly outline, and I feel
it was so often as like as not rheumatism rather than revelation.
But I don't know. I'd like to have a feed of paintings one day go
from here to Madrid, say, and have a good look. I shall. Once one
is out of England I always feel every thing and place is near. We
are only four hours from Milan here. Well, even tho' we don't go

there it is. One could start on Saturday morning and be there
for the opera that evening. It's the channel which is such a dividing
line. It frightens me. It is so terrifically wide, really. And once one
is across it one is on the island.

While I remember. Have you read The Three Mulla-Mulgars
by de la Mare ? If you haven't, do get it and read it to any infants
you know. It's about three monkeys.

One seems to read a lot here. It's the kind of house in which you
go into a room to comb your hair, find Gulliver's Travels on the
shelf behind the door and are immediately lost to the world. The
bedroom walls are of wood; there are thick white carpets on some
of the floors outside the windows wide balconies and thick
striped cotton blinds shut out the midday glare. A great many
flowers everywhere generally apricots ripening on the balcony
ledge and looking rather gruesome like little decapitated chickens.
If only I can make enough money so as never to leave here for
good ! One never gets old here. At 65 one is as spry as a two-year-old

and (I suppose it is the climate) all is so easy. The strain is gone.
One hasn't that feeling of dragging a great endless rope out of a
dark sea. Do you hate London ? No, I do see it has its beauty and
its charm, too. But all the same one feels so like the swollen sheep
that looks up and is not fed. It is so hard to put it " stuffily "
to live from one's centre of being in London.

Tell me what you are doing, if you are so inclined. Don't lose
any more half stones! For Heaven's sake put the half back again.
Look at the Sargol advertisements and be wise in time. God only
loves the Fat; the thin people he stick pins into for ever and ever.

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August 8, 7927

Forgive this paper. I am at the top of the house and there is no
other here. I am on the wide balcony which leads out of my dress-
ing room. It's early morning. All the tree-tops are burnished gold,
a light wind rocks in the branches. The mountains across the wide
valley are still in sunlight: on the remote drowsy peaks there are
small cloud drifts silvery. What I love to watch, what seems to
become part of one's vision, though, are the deep sharp shadows in
the ravines and stretching across the slopes. But one couldn't imag-
ine a more marvellous view or one more perfect to live by. I watch
it from early morning until late at night, when bats are out and
booming moths fly for one's hair. With intervals. . . .

Please please never think I need money like that. I can always
get money. I can always go into some wonder place and hold out
my hat or sell id. worth of boracic ointment for 2/6, net profit 2/5,

or money has no terrors for me nowadays. And besides I am

making some and it's only a question of my own activity how
much I make. At present I am 30 down and two nuns have
just come with needlework made by infants in their convent. The
dear creatures (I have a romantic love of nuns) my two gentle
columbines, blue-hooded, mild, folded over took little garments
out of a heavy box and breathed on them and I spent 2 j/- on
minute flannel jackets and pinnies for Ernestine's sister's first not-
yet-born baby.

The butcher's bill on red slaughtered butcher's paper is quite un-
paid, and now I can't pay it. But you see that's what I am like about
money, never to be pitied or helped !

What is your picture, the one you thought of in your bath ? Yes,
I find hot baths very inspiring, so does my Cousin Elizabeth. She
reads Shakespeare in hers. Her love of flowers is really her great
charm. Not that she says very much, but every word tells. A man
couldn't discover it in her he wouldn't realise how deep it is.
For no man loves flowers as women can. Elizabeth looks coolly at
the exquisite petunias and says, in a small far away voice, " They
have a very perfect scent." But I feel I can hear oceans of love
breaking in her heart for petunias and nasturtiums and snap-
dragons.
I must stop this letter and get on with my new story. It's called

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At the Bay and it's (I hope) full of sand and seaweed, bathing
dresses hanging over verandas, and sandshoes on window sills, and
little pink " sea " convolvulus, and rather gritty sandwiches and
the tide coming in. And it smells (oh I do hope it smells) a little
bit fishy.

To Richard Murry August 9, 1921

We have just been doing the flowers before we start work.
Scene: the salle a manger with windows wide open and pink
curtains flapping. The table bare and heaped with petunias, snap-
dragons and nasturtiums. Glass vases and bowls full of water
a general sense of buds and wetness and that peculiar stickiness of
fresh stalks. J. white shirt with sleeves up to his shoulders, white
duck trousers and rope shoes, snipping with a large pair of wet
scissors me blue cotton kimono and pink slippers, a-filling of
the vases. ... J. is terribly keen on petunias. I wish I could send
you a whole great bastick full. They are wonderful flowers al-
most pure light and yet an exquisite starry shape. We have every
colour from pale pink to almost blackish purple. And do you know
the smell of snapdragons ? My dear boy, I must here pause or you
will walk away. But tell me why do people paint forever bot-
tles and onions? A white snapdragon, for instance, just for a
change would be worth it, surely Richard. I wish I could un-
obtrusively give you these things leave flowers instead of
foundlings on your studio doorstep, in fact. Perhaps one day I
shall be able to. ...

I have been looking at a good deal of modern " work " lately,
and it almost seems to me that the blight upon it is a kind of fear.
Writers, at any rate, are self-conscious to such a pitch nowadays
that their feeling for life seems to be absolutely stopped arrested.
It is sad. They know they oughtn't to say " driving fast, eh ? " and
yet they don't know what they ought to say. If I am dead sincere
I'd say I think it is because people have so little love in their hearts
for each other. " Love casteth out Fear," is one of those truths that
one goes on proving and proving. And if you are without fear you
are free; it's fear makes us slaves But this sounds so prosy. You
know it as well as I do. I hate to bore you.

J. had a birthday on Saturday. His presents were (i) a panama

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hat; (2) some coloured blotting paper; (3) a cake; (4) a ruler.
We had a tea with candles complete and liqueur chocolates that
were positively terrifying. The moment of agonizing suspense
when you had the chocolate in your mouth and had to bite through
to the mysterious liqueur. However, we survived.

The weather is superb, here. There has been a Battle of the
Wasps. Three hosts with their citadels have been routed from my
balcony blind. In the swamps, still white with cotton grass, there
are hundreds of grasshoppers. }. saw an accident to one the other
day. He jumped by mistake into a stream and was borne away.
Body not recovered. When we thought about it it was the first
real accident to an insect that we remembered. Richard, I must
start work.

I still have so much to tell you. I've only unpacked the little small
things on top. All the big heavy ones are underneath.

L. M., who lives about 2 miles from here, is going to England this
month and is going to bring back Wingley. Athy is married to an
elderly lady in Hampstead, I believe, a widow. She lost her first
husband a lovely tabby some time ago.

August 7927

It's Sunday my day for writing letters. But I don't write them.
You are one of the very very few people whom I want to write to. I
think of you and I straightway long to " clasp hands across a vast "
. . . and more. I want to talk and to listen (that first) and to
have a good long look at you. When I'm fond of people their ap-
pearance is very valuable to me too. Do you feel like that ? But re
people. It's queer how unimportant they seem to become as one
goes on. One feels as tho' one has seen them enough got what
one wants from them and so to work. I don't mean that in a cold-
blooded way. Perhaps the truth is one has less and less time away
from work. It gets more engrossing every day here, and we live
like a pair of small time-tables. The hours away from it we read
Shakespeare aloud, discuss what has been written. J. goes flower
finding then the specimens have to be sorted, pressed, examined.
While he's out I play the piano or go for a small snail crawl my-
self. And before one can say knife it's time to go to bed. We get

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up at 7.30 both of us and breakfast on a balcony all windows
with a ring of snow mountains to look at across the valley.

Come here, one day. It's a very good place. I am determined
to make enough money to build a small shack here and make it my
winter perch for as long as I need perches. The point about this
place is it is not spoilt. There never can be a railway here. There is
nothing to do except look at the mountains, climb them and ex-
plore the forests and paddle in the streams. Motor cars can't do
these things so the rich and great will never come. The very flowers
seem to me to know this there is a brightness upon them and
they are careless even the wild strawberry doesn't bother to hide
And there's a delicate creature (the Bell Flower, J.'s favourite)
that grows everywhere as fine as a harebell and a very clear
almost glassy blue. It would not dare to grow in more civilised
places. Oh, Richard I do love the earth! When I go off by my-
self here one slips through the tree trunks and one is out of sight
at once hidden from every eye. That's my joy. I sit on a stump or
on the fir needles and my only trouble is that I can't make some
small grasshoppery sound now and then one wants to praise
someone or give thanks to someone.

Down below our windows in that rocky clearing before the trees
begin there is a flock of goats feeding as I write. The sound of their
bells is very pleasant. I look at them and wish I could put one in an
envelope (a goat, I mean) for you to draw. Small, fine, flatfish
head, delicate legs, lean springing haunches. I'd like also to post
you our maid-servant Ernestine to paint. She looks like a sun-
flower. She's in the kitchen now, shelling peas, and she wears a
Sunday bodice, yellow with black velvet stripes and rather big
sleeves. (She always dresses in the peasant costume.) As I write it
seems to me I've told you all this before. Have I ? Forgive me if I
have.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett August 29, 1927

I would have written before but the Furies have had me until
to-day. Something quite new for a change high fever, deadly
sickness and weakness. I haven't been able to lift my head from
the pillow. I think it has been a break-down from too much work.
I have felt exhausted with all those stories lately and yet couldn't

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Letters 1 92 1

stop. Well, there has been a stop now and I am just putting forth
my horns again and thinking of climbing up the hill. . . . How
I do abominate any kind of illness! . . . Oh God, what it is to
live in such a body! Well, it doesn't bear thinking about. . . .

As soon as I can get well enough to go downstairs I shall engage
our one original cab and go for a drive behind the old carthorse
with his jingle-bells. The driver as a great honour throws
the footmat over the back when one goes for a party of pleasure.
He seems to think that is very chic! But this is such a beautiful
country Oh ! it is so marvellous. Never looks the same the air
like old, still wine sound of bells and birds and grasshoppers
playing their fiddles and the wind shaking the trees. It rains and
the drops on the fir trees afterwards are so flashing bright and
glowing that one feels all is enchanted. It is cloudy we live in
fine white clouds for days and then suddenly at night all is crystal
clear and the moon has gold wings. They have just taken the new
honey from the hives, I wish I could send you a jar. All the summer
is shut up in a little pot.

But summer is on the wane the wane. Now M. brings back
autumn crocuses, and his handkerchief is full of mushrooms. I love
the satiny colour of mushrooms, and their smell and the soft stalks.
The Autumn crocuses push above short, mossy grass. Big red
pears monsters jostle in Ernestine's apron. Yes, $a commence,
ma chere. And I feel as I always do that Autumn is loveliest of all.
There is such a sharpness with the sweetness there is the sound
of cold water running fast in the streams in the forest. M. says the
squirrels are tamer already. But Heavens, Brett Life is so mar-
vellous it is so rich such a store of marvels that one can't say
which one prefers. ... I feel with you most deeply and truly
that it's not good to be " permanent." It's the old cry: " Better be
impermanent movables! " Now here, for instance we are only
4 hours from Italy one can run into Italy for tea. M. went down
to see Elizabeth last week and she had so done. She had waked with
a feeling for Italy that morning and behold she was flown. And
that night she sat in the opera house in Milan. . . . That is right
I am sure. That's why I hate England. I can't help it, Miss,
Downs or no Downs. There is that channel which lies like a great
cold sword between you and your dear love, Adventure. And by
Adventure I mean yes The wonderful feeling that one can

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lean out of heaven knows what window to-night >one can
wander under heaven knows what flowery trees. Strange songs
sound at the windows. The wine bottle is a new shape a perfectly
new moon shines outside. . . . No, don't settle. Don't have a con-
venient little gentlewoman's residence. Hot baths in one's own
bathroom are fearfully nice but they are too dear. I prefer to
bathe in a flower-pot as I go my way. . . .

Renoir at the last bores me. His feeling for flesh is a kind
of super-intense feeling about a lovely little cut of lamb. I am al-
ways fascinated by lovely bosoms but not without the heads and
hands as well, and I want in fact the feeling that all this beauty
is in the deepest sense attached to life. Real life! In fact I must con-
fess it is the spirit which fascinates me in flesh. That does for me as
far as modern painters are concerned, I suppose. But I feel bored
to my last groan by all these pattern-mongers. Oh, how weary it is !
I would die of it if I thought. And the writers are just the same.
But they are worse than the painters because they are so many of
them dirty-minded as well.

What makes Lawrence a real writer is his passion. Without
passion one writes in the air or on the sand of the seashore. But L.
has got it all wrong, I believe. He is right, I imagine or how shall
I put it ... ? It's my belief that nothing will save the world but
love. But his tortured, satanic demon love I think is all wrong.
The whole subject is so mysterious, tho'; one could write about it
forever. But let me try to say something. . . .

It seems to me there is a great change come over the world since
people like us believed in God, God is now gone for all of us.
Yet me must believe and not only that we must carry our weakness
and our sin and our devilish-ness to somebody. I don't mean in a
bad, abasing way. But we must feel that we are \nown, that our
hearts are known as God knew us. Therefore love to-day between
" lovers " has to be not only human, but divine to-day. They love
each other for everything and through everything and their love
is their religion. It can't become anything less even affection
I mean it can't become less supreme, because it is an act of faith
to believe! But oh, it is no good. . . .

I can't write it all out. I should go into pages and pages.

My stories for The Sphere are all done thank the Lord! I
have had copies with ILLUSTRATIONS! Oh, Brett! such fearful hor-

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rors. All my dear people looking like well Harrod's 29/6
crepe de chine blouses and young tailors' gents, and my old men

stuffy old woolly sheep. It's a sad trial. I am at present embed-
ded in a terrific story, but it still frightens me.

To Richard Murry September 5, 7927

I have been too long in answering your last letter. Forgive me.
They varnished the outside of this chalet and the " niff " gave me
white lead poisoning and I felt an awful worm with it. The whole
world seemed varnish. Everything I ate had varnish sauce. Even J.
was overcome for a day. But it's over now, and we appear to be
living in a house beautifully basted with the best brown gravy
and the factory is in full bias' again. I must say we do manage to get
through a great deal of work here, and there are always side issues

such as jam-making, sewing on our buttings, cutting each
other's hair, which fill up the margin of the days. We try to make
it a rule not to talk in bed. It's queer how full life is once one
gets free of wasted time. . . .

My ambition is to make enough money to build a small house
here, near where we are on a grassy slope with a wood behind
and mountains before. It will take about five years to do it get
the money together. But it would be a very great satisfaction to
design a really good place to work in down to the last cupboard.
But who am I to talk so lofty ? When if the time comes and
you're not too famous I'll beg you to lay aside your laurels and
do it for us. I'll only look over your shoulder and breathe very hard
when you make those lovely little lines that mean stairs.

Since I last wrote summer has gone. It's autumn. Little small
girls knock at the door with pears to sell and blue-black plums.
The hives have been emptied; there's new honey and the stars look
almost frosty. Speaking of stars reminds me we were sitting on
the balcony last night. It was dark. These huge fir trees " take "
the darkness marvellously. We had just counted four stars and re-
marked a light; high up what was it? on the mountain op-
posite, when suddenly from far away a little bell began ringing.
Someone played a tune on it something gay, merry, ancient,
over and over. I suppose it was some priest or lay brother in a
mountain village. But what we felt was it's good to think such

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things still happen to think some peasant goes of? in the late
evening and delights to play that carillon. I sometimes have a
fear that simple-hearted people are no more. I was ashamed of that
fear last night. The little bell seemed to say, but joyfully: " Be not
afraid. All is not lost."

All being well as they say, Wingley should arrive this week. He'll
be terrified after the journey. We shall have to get him snow boots
for the winter and an airman's helmet made of mouse's skin.

/. : Ask the old boy if he has seen Charlie Chaplin in " The
Kid." And tell him to let us know what he thinks of it.

K. : I will.

K.toR.: ?

R.:

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett September 7927

The Cezanne book, Miss, you won't get back until you send a
policeman or an urgent request for it. It is fascinating, and you can't
think how we enjoy such a book on our mountain tops. It's awfully
sympathetic to me. I am absolutely uneducated about painting. I
can only look at it as a writer, but it seems to me the real thing.
It's what one is aiming at. One of his men gave me quite a shock.
He's the spit of a man I've just written about, one Jonathan Trout. 1
To the life. I .wish I could cut him out and put him in my book.

I've just finished my new book. Finished last night at 10.30. Laid
down the pen after writing " Thanks be to God." I wish there was
a God. I am longing to (i) praise him, (2) thank him. The title
is At the Bay. That's the name of the very long story in it a con-
tinuation of Prelude. It's about 60 pages. I've been at it all last
night. My precious children have sat in here, playing cards. I've
wandered about all sorts of places in and out I hope it is good.
It is as good as I can do, and all my heart and soul is in it . . . every
single bit. Oh God, I hope it gives pleasure to someone. ... It is
so strange to bring the dead to life again. There's my Grandmother,
back in her chair with her pink knitting, there stalks my uncle
over the grass; I feel as I write, " You are not dead, my darlings.
All is remembered. I bow down to you. I efface myself so that you
may live again through me in your richness and beauty." And one

1 Sec " At the Bay."
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Letters 7927

feels possessed. And then the place where it all happens. I have
tried to make it as familiar to " you " as it is to me. You know the
marigolds? You know those pools in the rocks, you know the
mouse trap on the wash-house window-sill ? And too, one tries to
go deep to speak to the secret self we all have to acknowledge
that. I mustn't say any more about it.

No, we certainly shan't be back in England for years. Sometimes,
in bed at night, we plan one holiday a year, but everywhere else
feels nearer than England. If we can get the money we shall build
here in two or three years' time. We have already chosen the way
to look the way the house shall face. And it is christened Chalet
Content. We are both most fearful dreamers, especially when it's
late and we lie staring at the ceiling. It begins with me. M. de-
clares he won't talk. It's too late. Then I hear: " Certainly not more
than two floors and a large open fire-place." A long pause. K.:
" What about bees? " M. : " Most certainly bees, and I aspire to
a goat." And it ends with us getting fearfully hungry and M. go-
ing off for two small whacks of cake while I heat two small milks
on the spirit stove.

You know Wingley ? The Mountain brought him over. He ar-
rived with immense eyes after having flown through all that
landscape and it was several hours before the famous purr came
in to action. Now he's completely settled down and reads Shake-
speare with us in the evenings. I wonder what cat-Shakespeare is
like. We expect him to write his reminiscences shortly. They are
to be bound in mouse skin. . . .

Goodbye. I am taking a holiday to-day after my labours last
week. I wrote for nine solid hours yesterday.

Who do you think turned up at the end of this letter ? Mrs. H. G.
Wells and two young H. G. Wells. Very nice boys. We are full
of gaiety.

To Richard Murry September 22, 7927

Just a note to say that Wingley, our gooseberry-eyed one has ar-
rived. Thin terribly with the bones sticking out of his rump
like a cow's bones do. A mingy little ruff and fur that has turned
brown like an actor's black overcoat. You can imagine his loo^
after the journey, flashing across the world on the end of a string.

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But when J. lay on the floor and rubbed noses with him he turned
over and showed off his white weskit in just his old way. He is now
quite settled down, reads Shakespeare with us every night and
marks the place in his copy with a dead fly. It's awfully nice to
have him. He's like a little anchor, here. We hope later on he may
be persuaded to write his reminiscences. . . .

Sunday

We thought your criticism of " The Kid " was extremely inter-
esting. At last we got an idea what it really was like. It's a pity
Charles lets these other things creep in a great pity. I should
very much like to see him with the infant. I feel that would be fine.
But most of the rest dear me, no! As to the tabloid of the lady
with the cross such things make one hang one's head.

We have been squirrel-gazing this afternoon through field-
glasses. They are exquisite little creatures so intent, preoccupied,
as it were, and so careless. They flop softly from branch to branch,
hang upside down, just for the sake of hanging. Some here are as
small as rats, with reddish coats and silver bellies. The point about
looking at birds and so on through glasses is one sees them in
their own world, off their guard. One spies, in fact.

I'd like to send you some moss. Do you like moss ? There are
many kinds here, and just now it is in its beauty. It's nice to sit
down and riiffle it with one's hand. Flowers are gone. A few re-
main, but they are flat on the grass without their stalks dande-
lions and purple ones. The mountain ash is terrific against the
blue. There aren't many leaves here to turn, but the wild straw-
berry makes up for them. Minute leaves of every colour are scat-
tered on the ground.

In fact, if possible, this early autumn is all the bes' even better
than summer or spring. I mustn't send you a catalogue, though.
I must refrain.

To Sylvia Lynd September 24, 1921

I have been waiting to talk to you to have you to myself, no
less until I could chase my new book out of the house. I thought
it never would go. Its last moments lingered on and on. It got up,

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turned again, took off its gloves, again sat down, reached the door,
came back, until finally M. marked it down, lassooed it with a
stout string and hurled it at Pinker. Since when there's been an
ominous silence. True, I haven't had time to hear yet, but one has
a shameful feeling that it ought to have been " recognised " even
at the bottom of the first mountain and a feeble cheer a cheer
left over from Charlie C. might have been raised. . . . No,
that sounds proud. It's not really pride but FEAR!

But it's gone. May I give you a small hug for your marvellous
letter ? It really is a heavenly gift to be able to put yourself, jasmine,
summer grass, a kingfisher, a poet, the pony, an excursion and the
new sponge-bag and bedroom slippers all into an envelope. How
does one return thanks for a piece of somebody's life ? When I am
depressed by the superiority of men, I comfort myself with the
thought that they can't write letters like that. You make me feel,
too, that whatever star they were born under it wasn't the dancing
one. Keep well ! Never be ill again ! . . .

I lapped up the gossip. . . . What is happening to " married
pairs " ? They are almost extinct. I confess, for my part, I believe
in marriage. It seems to me the only possible relation that really is
satisfying. And how else is one to have peace of mind to enjoy life
and to do one's work? To know one other seems to me a far
greater adventure than to be on kissing acquaintance with dear
knows how many. It certainly takes a lifetime and it's far more
" wonderful " as time goes on. Does this sound hopelessly old-
fashioned? I suppose it does. But there it is to make jam with
M., to look for the flowers that NEVER are in the Alpine Flora
book, to talk, to grow things, even to watch M. darning his socks
over a lemon, seems to me to take up all the time one isn't working.
People nowadays seem to live in such confusion. I have a horror
of dark muddles. Not that life is easy, really, or that one can be
" a child " all the time, but time to live is needed. These complica-
tions take years to settle, years to get over. I wish you'd write a
novel about married happiness. It is time for one. ... It is time
for a good novel on any subject, though. Perhaps we don't see
them here. . . .

One thing one does miss here, and that is seeing people. One
doesn't ask for many, but there come moments when I long to see
and hear and listen that most of all.

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Otherwise this September has been perfect. Every day is finer.
There's a kind of greengage light on the trees. The flowers are
gone. All except flat starry yellow and silver ones that lie tight to
the turf. M. is a fierce mushroom hunter. He spares none. Little
mus 1 room " tots " swim in the soup and make me feel a criminal.
The iflountain ash is brilliant flashing bright against the blue.
And the quince jam is boiling something beautiful, M'm, as I
write. I love Autumn. I feel it's better than summer, even. Oh, the
moss here! I've never seen such moss, and the colour of the little
wild strawberry leaves that are threaded through. They are almost
the only leaf that turns here, so turn they do with a vengeance.

I hardly dare mention birds. It's rather hard Harold M. should
have such a very large bird in his bonnet; it makes all the rest of
us go without. There are some salmon pink ones here just now
passing through, which but for Harold M. I should enjoy. . . .

To Violet Schiff October 7927

I am sure Switzerland is the place for health and for work
I mean especially and above all for nerves. There is an extraor-
dinary feeling of ease here. It seems it is easy to live; one feels
remote and undisturbed. I've never known anything like the feel-
ing of peace and when one isn't working the freshness in the air,
the smell of pines, the taste of snow in one's teeth that's exag-
geration it's only the spiritual flavour. I think I really judge
a place by how vividly I can recall the past. One lives in the Past
or I do. And here it is living.

My book is to lie in Constable's bosom until after the New Year.
It's called, after all, The Garden Party. I hope you like the title.
The Mercury is publishing one of the stories in a month or two.
Terribly long. Too long for the Mercury. But that's enough and too
much about me

And now I have forgotten my health. Thank you, dearest Violet.
I think my lungs are quiescent rather the disease is. My heart
is the same at present. But I feel much better a different person
altogether on the whole. No longer an invalid, even tho' I still
can't walk and still cough and so on. ...

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To the Hon. Dorothy Brett October /, 7927

I am sitting writing to you in the balcony among teacups, grapes,
a brown loaf shaped like a bean, a plaited cake with almond paste
inside and nuts out. M. has forsaken it to join our Cousin Eliza-
beth. She appeared to-day behind a bouquet never smaller
woman carried bigger bouquets. She looks like a garden walking,
of asters, late sweet peas, stocks, and always petunias.

She herself wore a frock like a spider web, a hat like a berry
and gloves that reminded me of thistles in seed. Oh, how I love
the appearance of people how I delight in it, if I love them.
I have gathered Elizabeth's frocks to my bosom as if they were
part of her flowers. And then when she smiles a ravishing wrinkle
appears on her nose and never have I seen more exquisite hands.
Oh, dear, I hope we shall manage to keep her in our life. It's ter-
rible how one's friends disappear and how quickly one runs after
to lock the door and close the shutters. . . . The point about her
is that one loves her and is proud of her. Oh, that's so important!
To be proud of the person one loves. It is essential. It's deep
deep. There's no wound more bitter to love than not be able to
be proud of the other. It's the unpardonable offence, I think.

But no doubt Elizabeth is far more important to me than I am
to her. She's surrounded, lapped in lovely friends. Read her last
book, if you can get hold of it. It's called Vera and published by
Macmillan. It's amazingly good!

Except for her we are lost in the forest. And next month the
weather will change. Six weeks or two months in the clouds, with
nothing to see but more cloud, before it clears and the snow falls.
Other people who flee from the mountains in the between seasons
seem to think it will be a very awful time. But there is so much
to do. And I love to be in a place all the year round, to know it in
all its changes.

I am very interested in your doll still life. I've always wondered
why nobody really saw the beauty of dolls. The dollishness of
them. People make them look like cricket-bats with eyes as a rule.
But there is a kind of smugness and rakishness combined in dolls
and heaven knows how much else that's exquisite, and the only
word I can think of is precious. What a life one leads with them!
How complete! Their hats how perfect and their shoes, or

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Letter $ 7921

even minute boots. And the pose of a doll's hand 'very dimpled
with spreading fingers. Female dolls in their nakedness are the
most female things on earth. . . .

I keep on being interrupted by the sound in the trees. It's get-
ting late the tree-tops look as if they had been dipped into the
gold-pot and there's a kind of soft happy sighing or swinging or
ruffling all three going on. A bird, bright salmon pink with
mouse-grey wings hangs upside down pecking a fir cone. The
shadows are growing long on the mountains. But it's impossible to
describe this place. It has so brought back my love of nature that
I shall spend all the rest of my life . . . trekking. A winter in
Spitzbergen is an ambition of ours after some photographs in The
Sphere. It looks marvellous. The only question is will our cat be
able to stand it! The nearest other cat is in China. . . .

I've started and torn up two bad stories and now I am in the mid-
dle of the third. It's about a hypocrite. My flesh creeps as I write
about him and my eyes pop at his iniquities. . . .

Don't get caught in the cold blasts. Wrap yourself up. Make
the charlady feed you on bakin. In my infancy I used to cry my-
self to bed with the tragic lines:

I bought a pound of ba kin
An fried it in a pan
But nobody came to e eat it
But me e and my young man !

October 5, 1921

I've got another old chill. I'm lying on the balcony in J. M. M.'s
jaeger cardigan with a jaeger blanket up to my chest and fever.
The best part of a chill is fever. Then the world has just that some-
thing added which makes it almost unbearably beautiful. It is
worth it.

I am so glad you are hearing some music. I don't think music
ever makes me feel as Mozart does you, for instance. It's like being
gloriously dead if you know what I mean. One is not any more
one Js wafted away, and yet there's a feeling of rejoicing and a
kind of regret ah, such regret mixed together that, I feel,
disembodied spirits must know. But to tell the absolute truth,

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though Beethoven does that for me, so does Caruso on a really
good gramophone. . . .

M. and I, before this chill seized me, have been taking some
more driving exercise. Even the horse was amazed last time and
stopped every three minutes and turned round and ogled us. I am
going to wear riding breeches next time and M. pink coat and
stock made of a dinner napkin. We leapt up into the air, bounded
from side to side, shook, fell forward, were tossed back. The road
was an ancient water-course with upside-down mountains in it.
But the view ! The beauty of everything ! The gold-green pastures
with herds of tiny rams and cattle and white goats. We arrived
finally in a valley where the trees were turning. Cherry trees, a
bright crimson, yellow maples, and apple-trees flashing with ap-
ples. Little herd girls and boys with switches of mountain ash ran
by. There was a very old saw-mill that had turned too, a deep
golden red. There can't be any place in the world more won-
derful than the road to Lens. It is near there we mean to pitch our
ultimate tent.

To Mrs. Charles Renshaw October 14, 1921

My little Sister,

Your handkerchief is such a very gay one, it looks as though it
had dropped off the hankey tree. Thank you for it, darling. I re-
member one birthday when you bit me! It was the same one when
I got a doll's pram and in a rage let it go hurling by itself down the
grassy slope outside the conservatory. Father was awfully angry
and said no one was to speak to me. Also the white azalea bush was
out. And Aunt Belle had brought from Sydney a new recipe for
icing. It was tried on my cake and wasn't a great success because
it was much too brittle. I can see and feel its smoothness now. You
make me long to have a talk with you, in some place like the lily
lawn. Ah, Jeanne, anyone who says to me, " Do you remember ? "
simply has my heart ... I remember everything, and perhaps
the great joy of Life to me is in playing just that game. Going back
with someone into the past going back to the dining-room at 75,
to the proud and rather angry-looking seltzogene on the sideboard,
with the little bucket under the spout. Do you remember that hiss

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Letters 7927

it gave and sometimes a kind of groan ? And the smell inside the
sideboard of Worcester sauce and corks from old claret bottles ?

But I must not begin such things. If we are ever together down
the Pelorus Sounds come off with me for a whole day will you ?
and let's just remember. How Chummie loved it, too! Can't you
hear his soft boyish laugh and the way he said," Oh abso-/A?-ly ! "

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett October 15, 7927

All this week I have been most fearfully busy with a long story
which was only finished late last night. Finished it is, however.
Thanks be to God. It's called The Garden Party, and I have de-
cided to call my new book by that title instead of the other. In the
meantime the Mercury is bringing out that very long seaweedy
story of mine At the Bay. I feel inclined to suggest to them to give
away a spade an' bucket with each copy. . . .

Oh, how I saw that awful party! What a nightmare! I have a
perfect horror of such affairs! They are always the same. One has
to be encased in vanity like a beetle to escape being hurt. And the
ghastly thing is they are so hard to forget; one lives them over and
over. Don't go to them. But what's the use of saying that; there are
times when one has to go. It's difficult to see what compensations
there are in city life. I think the best plan is to live away from them
and then, when one has done a good deal of work and wants a
holiday, talce a real holiday in a place like Paris, or Madrid or even
London (but not for me London). It is nice sometimes to be with
many people and to hear music and to be " overcome " by a play
and to watch dancing. Walking in streets is nice, too. But one
always wants to have an avenue of escape. One wants to feel a
stranger, for these things to have their charm, and most im-
portant of all one wants to have a solid body of work behind one.
The longer I live the more I realise that in work only lies one's
strength and one's salvation. And such supreme joy that one gives
thanks for life with every breath.

Midday. Oh, why can't you hear that darling little bell in the
valley ? It's misty to-day, and the sun shines and the mist is silver.
It's still. And somewhere there rings over and over that little
chime, so forgetful, so easy, so gay. It's like a gay little pattern,
gold and butterflies and cherubs with trumpets in the very middle

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Letters 1921

of the page so that one pauses before one begins the afternoon
chapter. We are going for a picnic. We take the jaeger rug and
the bastick. And then we lie under a tree. Stir our tea with a twig,
look up, look down, wonder why. But it begins to get dark earlier.
At seven o'clock the moon is in full feather on my balcony. . . .

To the Countess Russell October 16, 7927

We I miss you, lovely little neighbour. I think of you often.
Especially in the evenings, when I am on the balcony and it's too
dark to write or to do anything but wait for the stars. A time I love.
One feels half disembodied, sitting like a shadow at the door of
one's being while the dark tide rises. Then comes the moon, mar-
vellously serene, and small stars, very merry for some reason of
their own. It is so easy to forget, in a worldly life, to attend to these
miracles. But no matter. They are there waiting, when one re-
turns. Dawn is another. The incomparable beauty of every early
morning, before human beings are awake! But it all comes back
to the same thing, Elizabeth there's no escaping the glory of Life.
Let us engage to live for ever. For ever is not half long enough
for me.

London feels far away from here. We thrill, we are round-eyed
at the slightest piece of news. You cannot imagine how your let-
ter was taken in absorbed. I see you stepping into carriages, driv-
ing to the play, dining among mirrors and branched candlesticks
and far away sweet sounds. Disguised in " Kepanapron," I open
your door to illustrious strangers, Mighty Ones, who take off their
coats in the large hall and are conducted into your special room
where the books are. ... Do not forget us.

J. has been so deep in Flaubert this week that his voice has only
sounded from under the water, as it were. He has emerged at tea-
time and together we have examined the . . . very large, solid
pearls ... I must say I do like a man to my tea.

And here are your petunias, lovely as ever, reminding me always
of your garden and the grass with those flat dark rosettes where the
daisy plants had been.

But this isn't a letter. Farewell. May Good Fortune fall ever
more deeply in love with thee.

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Letters 1927

To S. 5. Koteliansfy October 18,

Dear Koteliansky, my enemy,

Can you tell me anything about that Russian doctor ? If there
was a chance of seeing him and if he was not too expensive I would
go to Paris in the Spring and ask him to treat me. . . .

Not a day passes but I think of you. It is sad that we are enemies.
If only you would accept my love. It is good love not the erotic
bag kind.

But no. You cannot answer my letters. When my name is
mentioned you cross yourself and touch wood.

It is sad for me.

Katherine.

Don't return the post card. [A photograph of herself.] If you
hate me too much burn it in a candle.

To the Countess Russell Sunday

October 1921

I actually had the strength of mind to keep your letter unopened
until J. came back from his wood-gathering. Then spying him
from my balcony while he was still afar off, I cried in a loud voice.
And he came up and we read it together and thanked God for
you. . . . You do such divine things! Your visit to Stratford, Ham-
let in the Churchyard, the snapdragons, the gate of Anne's cot-
tage, King Lear on the river it all sounded perfect. In fact,
one felt that if the truth were known William had gathered you
the snapdragon and you had leaned over the gate together.

What are you reading, Elizabeth ? Is there something new which
is very good? I have turned to Milton all last week. There are
times when Milton seems the only food to me. He is a most blessed
man.

". . . Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or sunnie Hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; "

But the more poetry one reads the more one longs to read! This
afternoon }., lying on my furry rug, has been reading aloud Swin-

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Letter s 1921

burners Ave Atque Vale which did not sound fearfully good.
\ suspect those green buds of sin and those grey fruits of shame.
And try as one may, one can't see Baudelaire. Swinburne sits so
very tight on the tomb. Then we read Hardy's poem to Swinburne,
which J. adored. I, being an inferior being, was a little troubled
by the picture of Sappho and Algernon meeting en plein mer (if
one can say such a thing) and he begging her to tell him where her
manuscript was. It seemed such a watery rendezvous. But we went
on reading Hardy. How exquisite, how marvellous some of those
poems arc ! They are almost intolerably near to one. I mean I al-
ways long to weep . . . that love and regret touched so lightly
that autumn tone, that feeling that " Beauty passes though rare,
rare it be . . ."

But speaking of autumn, it is here. Yesterday, soft, silky, sweet-
smelling summer kissed the geraniums, and waving the loveliest
hand, went. Oh, Elizabeth, how I longed for you this morning
on my balcony! The sun came through, a silver star. In the folds
of the mountains little clouds glittered like Dorothy Wordsworth's
sheep. And all that paysage across the valley was a new land. The
colour is changed since you were here. The green is gold, a very
deep gold like amber. On the high peaks snow was falling. And
the Wind walking among the trees had a new voice. It was
like land seen from a ship. It was like arriving in the harbour, and
wondering, half frightened and yet longing, whether we would go
ashore. But no, I can't describe it. Soon after all was grey and down
came the white bees. The feeling in the house changed imme-
diately. Ernestine became mysterious and blithe. The Faithful One
ran up and down as though with cans of hot water. One felt the
whisper had gone round that the pains had begun and the doctor
had been sent for.

I am just at the beginning of a new story, which I may turn into
a serial. Clement Shorter wants one. But he stipulates for 13 " cur-
tains " and an adventure note! Thirteen curtains! And my stories
haven't even a wisp of blind cord as a rule. I have never been able
to manage curtains. I don't think I shall be able to see such a whole-
sale hanging through.

The knitting becomes almost frenzied at times. We may be sober
in our lives, but we shall be garish in our shrouds and flamboyant
in our coffins if this goes on. J. now mixes his wools thereby

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Letters 7927

gaining what he calls a "superb astrachan effect." Chi lo sa! I
softly murmur over my needles. I find knitting turns me into an
imbecile. It is the female tradition, I suppose.

To John Galsworthy October 25, 7927

By an unfortunate mischance your letter only reached me to-
day. My silence must have seemed very ungracious. . . . Though,
even now, I scarcely know how to thank you. Your noble generous
praise is such precious encouragement that all I can do is try to de-
serve it. I want to promise you that I will never do less than my
best, that I will try not to fail you. But this sounds superficial and
far from my feeling. There the letters are, tied up in the silk
handkerchief with my treasures. I shall never forget them. I wish,
some day, I might press your hand for them. Thank you " for
ever."

I ought to tell you for after all, you have the key I have been
haunting the little house in Bayswater Road last week looking
at the place where the humming birds stood and standing where
Soames stood in the hall by the hat stand. How I can hear Smithers'
word " Bobbish " But one must not begin. One could go on for
ever. All the life of that house flickers up, trembles, glows again,
is rich again, in these last moments. And then there is Soames
with Fleun running out of his bosom, so swift, so careless leav-
ing him bare. . . . Thank you for these wonderful books. . . .

You asked me about my work. I have just finished a new book
which is to be published at the New Year. And now I am " think-
ing out " a long story about a woman which has been in my mind
for years. But it is difficult. I want her whole life to be in it a
sense of time and the feeling of " farewell." For by the time
the story is told her life is over. One tells it in taking leave of her.
. . . Not one of these modern women but one of those old-
fashioned kind who seemed to have such a rich being, to live in
such a living world. Is it fancy? Is it just that the harvest of the
past is gathered ? Who shall say ?

In November or December the London Mercury is publishing
a day in the life of the little family in Prelude. If I may, I should
very much like to send you a copy.

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The mountains here are good to live with, but it doesn't do to
look lower. The Swiss are a poor lot. Honesty and Sparsamkeit
in themselves don't warm one's heart.

To S. S. Koteliansty 'November 4, 7927

Thank you for your letter, dear Koteliansky. As I cannot go to
Paris until the Spring I shall not write to the doctor until then.
But I am very glad to have his address.

I am glad that you criticised me. It is right that you should have
hated much in me. I was false in many things and careless un-
true in many ways. But I would like you to know that I recognise
this and for a long time I have been trying " to squeeze the slave
out of my soul." You will understand that I do not tell you this to
prove I am an angel now! No. But I need not go into the reasons;
you know them.

It's marvellous here just now. The first snow has fallen on the
lower peaks, and everything is crystal clear. The sky is that mar-
vellous transparent blue one only sees in early Spring and Autumn.
It looks so high and even joyful tender. . . . And an exciting
thing has happened to-day. My ancient geranium which is called
Sarah has been visited by the angel at last. This geranium has real
personality. It is so fearfully proud of this new bud that every
leaf is curling.

To the Countess Russell November 1921

It is J.'s turn but I can't refrain from slipping a Bon Jour into the
envelope. It's such a marvellously Bon Jour, too; I wish I could
send it you, intact. Blazing hot, with a light wind swinging in the
trees and an exquisite transparent sky with just two little silver
clouds lying on their backs like cherubs basking.

We don't only read Shakespeare and the poets. I have re-read
Queechy lately, " fresh bursts of tears " and all. I loved it. " ' Mr.
Carleton, who made that ? ' said the child, pointing to the slowly
sinking orb on the horizon with streaming eyes. The young Eng-
lish peer had no answer ready. His own eyes filled. ' Will you lend
me your little Bible,' he said gently. ' Oh, Mr. C.! * Sobs were her

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Letters 1921

only answer, but happy sobs, grateful sobs. She could not see to
hand it to him, nor he to see it offered." I have also been reading
modern novels for the Daily News. They are a vulgar, dreary lot.
Why all this pretence when we have not said a quarter of what
there is to say. Why can't writers be warm, living, simple, merry
or sad as it pleases them ? All this falsity is so boring.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett November n, 1921

I must begin a Service of Thanks. First for your letter and then
for the little photograph which is the spit of you, and then for
t'other photograph in the cape and cap. How well I remember
those caps, especially pinned down at the back on to one's wad of
hair. I had a pale blue one for one of my journeys to New Zealand
and, draped with a pale blue gossamer veil, I felt fearfully chic and
dashing. Human flesh and blood doesn't dare to think what it
really looked like. . . . My sister has an immense book full of
photographs from the age of six months. It is the most chastening
book I know. Really, one's hats, one's waists, and a small black
round cap with wings I used to affect, which I called always my
Wooza. It was rather a good name for it. But worn in conjunction
with a linen collar and large tie. ... I shall never let M. see that
book. It is-too shattering.

Thanks again for the Mercury which arrived gummed to its
eyebrows. I tore my way into it, at last. But a harder roll has never
entered Switzerland. That blue paper of yours for one thing is a
kind of very superior rag-book paper. If you drew a crocodile on a
piece and gave it to an infant the crocodile would live for ever. I
have preserved a small portion to be used as a patch when M. starts
learning to ski. ... I wish people would not write that kind of
article for another five years at least. Though I was very glad the
man liked my Daughters of the Late Colonel. For I put my all into
that story and hardly anyone saw what I was getting at. Even dear
old Hardy told me to write more about those sisters. As if there
was -any more to say! But, speaking dead seriously, I could do
with a great deal less praise than I get. It's . . . frightening, and
I feel with all my heart I want to have another two years' work
done at least before I am worth talking about. However, I am cer-

= 4H =

Letters 1921

tain my new book will be a failure. There will be reactions against
it. I count on that, so I mean to make the next one really as good as
I can. . . .

The attitude to Art all Art of the rich and great in London
is odious isn't it ? It always reminds me of the story of Tchekhov
where the man wants to say, longs to say, "Paws off! " to the
plebeian. I'd like to say it to not only Lady et Cie. . . .

Words cannot describe the cold here. We have central heating
which never goes out, but even then on my balcony I freeze ab-
solutely hard. The Mountain sends up all the food buttoned into
tight little suet jackets and we both wear red Indian boots, fur
lined. They are so nice. One's feet feel like small animals, you dis-
cover them playing together all on their own. But what shall we
do if it gets colder ? At present the BIG Snow hasn't fallen. All is
frozen hard, and each tree has a little mat of white before it. Oh
dear, it is so beautiful. The mountains are so noble and this snowy
cover makes one see their shapes every hollow, every peak is
modelled. But all agree the snow is not serious yet. It falls, small
and light like confetti, or it swarms like white bees M. comes
back from his walks hung with real icicles . . .

I had to break off there, for I was absolutely pursued by birds.
They were flying right inside the balcony, the lovely creatures, a
bright salmon pink with silver heads and beaks. I am afraid they
must have been left behind. So now I have begged a great slice of
bread from Ernestine and my balcony rail is a very nice restaurant.
If only they'd come and eat. Precious little creatures how I love
them. Have I told you about my balcony? It is as big as a small
room, the sides are enclosed and big double doors lead from it to
my workroom. Three superb geraniums still stand on the ledge
when it's fine, and their rosy masses of flowers against blue space
are wonderful. It is so high up here that one only sees the tops and
half way down of the enormous mountains opposite, and there's a
great sweep of sky as one only gets at sea on a ship anchored
before a new, undiscovered country. At sunset, when all the clouds
are really too much to bear alone I call out, " Mountains on your
right a deep blue," and M. shouts from below, " Right! " and I hear
him go out on his balcony to observe. But it's most beautiful at
night. Last night, for instance, at about 10 o'clock, I wound myself

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Letters 1921

up in wool and I came out here and sat watching. The world was
like a huge ball of ice. There wasn't a sound. It might have been
ages before man. . . .

Tchekhov said over and over again, he protested, he begged, that
he had no problem. In fact, you know, he thought it was his weak-
ness as an artist. It worried him, but he always said the same. No
problem. And when you come to think of it, what was Chaucer's
problem or Shakespeare's? The "problem" is the invention of
the iQth Century. The artist takes a long loo\ at life. He says
softly, " So this is what life it, is it ? " And he proceeds to express
that. All the rest he leaves. Tolstoy even had no problem. What
he had was a propaganda and he is a great artist in spite of it.

November 12, 1921

It's very late at night and I ate such a stupid man with my tea
I can't digest him. He is bringing out an anthology of short stories
and he said the more " plotty " a story I could give him the better.
What about that for a word ! It made my hair stand up in prongs.
A nice " plotty " story, please. People are funny.

The Fat Cat sits on my Feet.

Fat is not the word to describe him by now. He must weigh
pounds ar\d pounds. And his lovely black coat is turning white.
I suppose it's to prevent the mountains from seeing him. He
sleeps here and occasionally creeps up to my chest and pads
softly with his paws, singing the while I suppose he wants to
see if I have the same face all night. I long to surprise him with
terrific disguises.

M. calls him "My Breakfast Cat" because they share that
meal, M. at the table and Wingley on. It's awful the love one
can lavish on an animal. In his memoirs which he dictates to
me M.'s name is always Masteranman one word my name
is Grandma Jaegar the Mountain is always called "Foster-
monger" and for some reason our servant he refers to as The
Swede. He has rather a contempt for her.

4l6 a

Letters 7927

To William Gerhardi November 12, 1921

First of all, immediately, I think your novel * is awfully good.
I congratulate you. It is a living book. What I mean by that is,
it is warm; one can put it down and it goes on breathing. I think
it has defects. But before we speak of them I'd like to tell you
the things I chiefly admire. I think, perhaps, the best moment
is at the end; the scene of your hero's return and his walk with
Nina. There you really are discovered a real writer. There is
such feeling, such warmth, in these chapters. Nina's " whimsical "
voice, those kittens, the sofa with broken springs, the " speck of
soot on your nose " and then at the very end the steamer that
would not go. I am not quoting these things at random, for their
charm. But because, taken altogether, they seem to convey to the
reader just the " mood " you wished to convey. I think at the
very beginning the tone is just a trifle tragic as it ought not to be.
But once you are launched it's remarkable how quickly and
easily you take the reader into that family; and how real you
make the life, the ways, the surroundings. Fanny Ivanovna is
very good. I see her. But if you were here I could go into details
in a way I can't in a letter. And another thing that is good is the
play of humour over it all. That makes it flexible, warm, easy,
as it should be. Only in Chapter XI, in your description of the
" sisters," I think you falsify the tone; it seems to me, you begin
to tell us what we must feel about them, what the sight of them
perched on the chairs and sofas really meant, and that's not neces-
sary. One feels they are being " shown off," rather than seen.
And you seem in that chapter to be hinting at something, even
a state of mind of your hero's, which puts the reader off the scent
a little. But that's just my feeling, of course.

Now we come to your second " plot," as it were, the Admiral,
Sir Hugh and the Russian General. What opportunities you must
have had, what excellent use you made of those opportunities!
This part of your book is interesting for several reasons. I mean
the " situation " qud situation is immensely attractive, and your
principal characters are painted to the Life - They are almost too
good to be true. Your Russian General is a rare find. I have

1 Futility, which was sent to K. M. in manuscript. " After this letter," says Mr. Ger-
hardi, " Futility was overhauled thanks to K. M.'s helpful advice."

= 417 =

Letters 1921

known just such another, though he wasn't a general. But the
beating in the face, in my friend's case was "beaten to death,
simply" and the reason was, "to use the English formula,
the man was a blighter . . ."

I think the only thing that does not convince me is Nina's
novel. That feels " strained." It seems to stand out too clearly,
to be out of focus, even. It's such a remarkable thing to have done,
that instead of wondering why she did it, one stops short at how.
It gives the reader the wrong kind of shock.

Two things more I want to say. One is there are so many unex-
pected awfully good things that one comes upon as one reads,
with a small shock of delight. It's as though, being taken by the
author through his garden you suddenly discover, half tucked
away, another flowery tree. " So you have these in your garden,
too . . ." That's the feeling. It makes one want to see more of
your work.

The other is, I don't think this book really holds together
enough, even allowing for the title. It ought to be more squeezed
and pressed and moulded into shape and wrung out, if you know
what I mean. And sometimes the writing is careless. All the same,
if I were you, I would publish it more or less as it stands. I would
let it go. You will have to take out a good many of the Russian
expressions and single words. I expect you hear them so distinctly
in your bjain that you feel they must be there. But they will
put people off.

... At that moment I lit a cigarette and re-read what I have
written, with dismay. ... In trying to be honest I sound carp-
ing and cold. Not a bit what I feel. Let me end where I began
by warmly, sincerely congratulating you. That's the most im-
portant thing of all. And when I say I don't think your novel
"holds together enough" please remember I'm speaking
"ideally" . . .

I hope you will write to me. If you feel offended please tell
me. It's not easy to talk man to man at a distance.

And here's your book back again. The Swiss who can let noth-
ing in or out of their country without taking a share, have, I am
afraid, nibbled the edges of the cover.

P.S. The rain thumped. Don't you mean the rain drummed?

= 418 =

Letters 1921

Monday
November 14, 1921

The wools came to-day. They are quite lovely and I feel inclined
to carry them about, just as they are, like fat dolls. M. was deeply
moved by their beauty, he is an expert with the needles. . . .
But we found by piercing the postage signs that you had paid
vast sums to have them sent over. So here is another cheque,
and I hope you hear our grateful, thankful thanks all standing
in a row and singing your praises.

Isn't leming yellow a fascinating colour? There is a very
pink pink here too aster pink, which is heavenly fair. I could
get a wool complex very easily. . . . These are simply perfect
in every way.

This is not a letter. Now you owe me one, pleasant thought.
The day is simply divine so hot that my pink perishall won't
keep out the sun enough. Blazing! With air that one's very soul
comes up to breathe, rising like a fish out of the dark water.

You were not serious about the sweater, were you? But can
you make sleeves? I can't turn corners for nuts.

P.S. No, I don't like mousy colours. We began to wind
after lunch to-day. The cat almost had delirium tremens. We
thought we should have to chloroform him finally. He sat up and
began to wind his own tail.

P.P.S. i purl i plain wool in front of needle knit two to-
gether slip one cross stitch for 94 lines purl again decrease to form
spiral effect up leg now use needle as for purl casting on first
and so continue until length can be divided by three. Care should
be taken to keep all flat. Press with warm iron and serve. . . .

Just a little home recipe, ma chere, for a wet evening.

November 21, 7927

Your fearfully nice letter makes me wish that instead of up-
setting your table you would sit down at mine and drink tea
and talk. But I hasten to answer it for this reason. Have you
found a publisher for your novel? I know Cobden-Sanderson
very well. I should be delighted to write to him about it if you
would care for me to do so. He is a publisher who has only

= 419 =

Letter s 7927

been going for a couple of years or so but he has a very good
name already. ... If you care to send him yours I shall ask
Middleton Murry to write as well. For I confess, I let him see
your novel. Was that a bad breach of confidence? I hope not.
He agreed enthusiastically that it ought to be published. . . .

You know, if I may speak in confidence, I shall not be " fash-
ionable" long. They will find me out; they will be disgusted;
they will shiver in dismay. I like such awfully unfashionable
things and people. I like sitting on doorsteps, and talking to
the old woman who brings quinces, and going for picnics in a
jolting little wagon, and listening to the kind of music they play
in public gardens on warm evenings, and talking to captains
of shabby little steamers, and in fact, to all kinds of people in
all kinds of places. But what a fatal sentence to begin. It goes
on for ever. In fact, one could spend a whole life finishing it.

But you see I am not a high-brow. Sunday lunches and very
intricate conversations on Sex and that " fatigue " which is so
essential and that awful " brightness " which is even more essen-
tial these things I flee from.

I'm in love with life, terribly. Such a confession is enough to
waft Bliss out of the Union * . . .

I am sending you a post card of myself and the two knobs of
the electric light. The photographer insisted they should be
there as well. Yes, I live in Switzerland because I have con-
sumption. But I am not an invalid. Consumption doesn't belong
to me. It's only a horrid stray dog who has persisted in following
me for four years, so I am trying to lose him among these moun-
tains. But "permanently compelled" Oh no!

To Lady Ottoline Morrell December 1921

I have just found the letter I wrote you on the first of Novem-
ber. I would send it you as a proof of good faith but I re-read it,
Grim thing to do isn't it ? There is a kind of fixed smile on
old letters which reminds one of the bridling look of old photo-
graphs. So it's torn up and I begin again.

I don't know what happens to Time here. It seems to become
shorter and shorter; to whisk round the corners; to become all

1 The library of the Oxford Union.
= 420 =

Letter s 7921

tail, all Saturday to Monday. This must sound absurd coining
from so remote a spot as our mountain peaks. But there it is.
We write, we read, M. goes off with his skates, I go for a walk
through my fieldglasses and another day is over. This place makes
one work. Perhaps it's the result of living among mountains; one
must bring forth a mouse or be overwhelmed.

If climate were everything, then Montana must be very near
Heaven. The sun shines and shines. It's cold in the shade, but
out of it it is hot enough for a hat and a parasol far and away
hotter than the S. of France, and windless. All the streams arc
solid little streams of ice, there are thin patches of snow, like
linen drying, on the fields. The sky is high, transparent, with
marvellous sunsets. And when the moon rises and I look out
of my window down into the valley full of clouds it's like looking
out of the ark while it bobbed above the flood.

But all the same I shall never get over my first hatred of the
Swiss. They are the same everywhere. Ugly, dull, solid lumps,
with a passion divided between pigs and foreigners.

Foreigners are what they prefer to gorge themselves with but
pigs will serve. As to their ankles they fill me with a kind
of anguish. I should have an ankle complex if I lived in Switzer-
land long. But one never lives anywhere long. . . .

M. and I are reading Jane Austen in the evenings. With delight.
Emma is really a perfect book don't you feel? I enjoy every
page. I can't have enough of Miss Bates or Mr. Woodhouse's
gruel or that charming Mr. Knightley. It's such an exquisite
comfort to escape from the modern novels I have been forcibly
reading. Wretched affairs! This fascinated pursuit of the sex ad-
venture is beyond words boring! I am so bored by sex qud sex,
by the gay dog sniffing round the prostitute's bedroom or by
the ultra modern snigger worse still that I could die at
least.

It has turned me to Proust however at last. I have been pre-
tending to have read Proust for years but this autumn M. and
I both took the plunge. I certainly think he is by far the most
interesting living writer. He is fascinating! It is a comfort to have
someone whom one can so immensely admire. It is horrible to
feel so out of touch with one's time as I do nowadays almost
frightening.

= 421 =

Letters 1921

To S. S. Koteliam\y November 29, 7927

If I trouble you with this request please simply tell me so.

Do you know where I can obtain any information about Dr.
Manoukhin's treatment ? I mean has it appeared in any possi-
ble papers or journals that I can get hold of? I ask for this reason.
I cannot possibly go to Paris at present. I have no one to send. In
fact, I have not mentioned this idea to anyone except my doctor
here. Such things I prefer to do alone. It is not just a whim.
My doctor here says he will very gladly consider any information
I can get him about this treatment and as he has a very good X-ray
apparatus, it could, if it is not the " professional patent " of Doctor
Manoukhin, be tried here, immediately.

What should you advise me to do ?

My difficulty about writing direct is the language. It is one
thing to explain one's case by speech, it is another to write it in
a foreign tongue. I should simply antagonise him. . . . But
the doctor here is quite intelligent and very honest. He is inter-
ested sincerely. And I have such faith in this " unknown " treat-
ment. I feel it is the right thing.

And I want to stop this illness, as soon as possible.

It is a beautiful, still winter day. There is the sound of a saw
mill. The sun shines like a big star through the dark fir trees.

How are you ?

To Sydney Schiff December 3, 7927

I am still here to all appearance. But the " essential moi," as
Daudet would say, is in Paris sitting in a small darkish room
opposite a man called Manoukhin. Whether I shall follow this
one I don't know yet. When does one really begin a journey
or a friendship or a love affair ? It is those beginnings which
are so fascinating and so misunderstood. There comes a moment
when we realise we are already well on our way dcja.

Let us drink champagne when we meet again. Where will that
be and when? That glimpse of London in your letter just

that lift of the curtain showing lights, big gay rooms, 's

mouth, the Ballet a strain, heard from afar and people round
the table and the sound of the bell . . . you took me there for the
moment and I passed away from my mountains.

= 422 =

Letters 7927

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett December 5, 7921

These last few days have been rather bad ones tired ones.
I haven't been able to do anything but read. It's on these occasions
that one begins to wish for queer things like gramophones. It
wouldn't matter if one could just walk away. But that's out of the
question at present. But no more of it.

Wasn't that Van Gogh shown at the Goupil ten years ago?
Yellow flowers, brimming with sun, in a pot? I wonder if it is
the same. That picture seemed to reveal something that I hadn't
realised before I saw it. It lived with me afterwards. It still does.
That and another of a sea-captain in a flat cap. They taught me
something about writing, which was queer, a kind of freedom
or rather, a shaking free. When one has been working for a long
stretch one begins to narrow one's vision a bit, to fine things
down too much. And it's only when something else breaks
through, a picture or something seen out of doors, that one real-
ises it. It is literally years since I have been to a picture
show. I can smell them as I write.

I am writing to you before breakfast. It's just sunrise and the
sky is a hedge-sparrow-egg blue, the fir trees are quivering with
light. This is simply a marvellous climate for sun. We have far
more sun than in the South of France, and while it shines it is
warmer. On the other hand out of it one might be in the
Arctic Zone, and it freezes so hard at night that we dare not
let the chauffage down, even. It is queer to be in the sun and to
look down on the clouds. We are above them here. But yesterday
for instance it was like the old original flood. Just Montana
bobbed above the huge lakes of pale water. There wasn't a thing
to be seen but cloud below.

Oh dear! I am sure by now you are gasping at the dullness
of this letter. To tell you the truth I am horribly unsettled
for the moment. It will pass. But while it is here I seem to have
no mind except for what is worrying me. I am making another
effort to throw off my chains i.e., to be well. And I am waiting
for the answer to a letter. I'm half here half away it's a bad
business. But you see I have made up my mind to try the Russian
doctor's treatment. I have played my card. Will he answer?
Will anything come of it? One dares not speak of these things.

= 423 =

Letters 7927

It is so boring, for it is all speculation, and yet one cannot stop
thinking . . . thinking . . . imagining what it would be like to
run again or take a little jump.

To S. S. Kotelians\y December 5, 7921

I have written to M. to-day. Whatever he advises that will
I do. It is strange I have faith in him. I am sure he will not have
the kind of face One walks away from. Besides Think of be-
ing " well." Health is as precious as life no less. Do you know
I have not walked since November 1920? Not more than to a
carriage and back. Both my lungs are affected; there is a cavity
in one and the other is affected through. My heart is weak, too.
Can all this be cured. Ah, Koteliansky wish for me !

To Stephen Hudson December 8, 7927

I have read your Elinor Col house more than twice, and I shall
read it again. I do congratulate you sincerely from my heart. It's
amazingly good! So good one simply can't imagine it better.
One pushes into deep water easily, beautifully, from the first
sentence, and there's that feeling so rare of ease, of safety, of
wishing only to be borne along wherever the author chooses to
take one..

But how you have conveyed the contrast between Elinor and
Richard! Am I fantastic in dating it from the moment when
Richard leaves her after their first meeting, when he opens the
door on to the brilliant light one feels the appeal of his fairness
and her darkness in an astonishing way. That moment remains
with me throughout the book. Let me dare to say it's almost a
mystical interpretation of their relations.

Why aren't you here that we might talk it over and over.
I'd like to recall so much scene after scene rises in my mind.
But although it is Elinor's book and a triumph for Elinor it's
your presentation of Richard which I admire so tremendously.
I don't mean only his boyish charm though Heaven knows
that is potent enough or even his naturalness which at times
takes my breath away. But it's Richard's innocence of the wiles
and arts of Life! It's the sight of him, in the midst of all that

- 424 =

Letters 1921

scheming and plotting and his horror, finally, that this should
happen to him. . . .

Of course, all the detail, so fastidious, so satisfying, is beyond
praise.

Elinor lives. I see her, hear her, recognise those fingers with
the long pointed brilliant nails, look into that little brain.

Yes, I honour you for it. It's an achievement. I rejoice in your
success.

To the Countess Russell December 1921

So awful is the weather that I have retired under the edredon
until it changes. There is no snow. But there is a cold sheet of icy
mist, like a slate, pressing against the windows, and we feel like
slate pencils inside. Nothing warms one. The chauffage goes
night and day, but one shivers night and day as well. If this is
the between season people are wise to avoid it. The worst of it
is our brains are frozen, too. We live for the postman, and he
brings us bills. We long for letters the kind of letters exiles are
supposed to receive, and a copy of The Nation comes instead.
In fact, all is very devilish, and if it weren't for Jane Austen in the
evenings we should be in despair. We are reading her through.
She is one of those writers who seem to not only improve by
keeping but to develop entirely new adorable qualities. Emma
was our first. John sighed over Jane Fairfax. I felt that Mr.
Knightley in the Shrubbery would be happiness. But her man-
agement of her plot the way just for the exquisite fun of
the thing she adds a new complication that one can't admire
too greatly. She makes modern episodic people like me, as far
as I go, look very incompetent ninnies. In fact, she is altogether
a chastening influence. But ah, what a rare creature !

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett December 13, 1921

Why do all my fountain pens die ? I care for them as if they
were babies and they absolutely refuse to live. Is there such a
thing as a real pen?

What a pity it is you can't get a house in St. John's Wood. I
think it is the one darling part of London. And I always am see-
ing such houses advertised on the back pages of The Sunday

= 425 =

Letters 7927

Times and The Observer. They sound ideal. Don't you prefer it
to Hampstead? It has a charm. But perhaps that is because I lived
there in Carlton Hill for a long time when I was young and very
very happy. I used to walk about there at night late walking
and talking on nights in Spring with two brothers. Our house
had a real garden, too, with trees and all the rooms were good
the top rooms lovely. But it's all the musical people who
make St. John's Wood so delightful. Those grunting 'cellos,
those flying fiddles and the wonderful pianos. It's like a certain
part of Brussels. And then the house at 5 Acacia Road. It has
memories but it's not only precious because of them. It was a
charming house.

Oh, this cold! I feel like an explorer sending you these lines be-
fore the snow kills him. It's fearful! One can't work; the brain is
frozen hard, and I can't breathe better than a fish in an empty
tank. There is no air, it's a kind of frozen ice. I would leave here
to-morrow but where can one go ? One begins the wandering of
a consumptive fatal! Everybody does it and dies. However, I
have decided to leave this particular house in June, for another
more remote. I passed it one day lately when I was driving. It's
in the most superb spot. The forests are on both sides but in front
there are huge meadows with clumps of fir trees dotted over
them a kind of i8th century landscape. Beyond the meadows
tower the .gaunt snow mountains, and behind them is a big lake.
It is to let in June. We shall take it for a year. My chief reason
is for the haymaking. One will be in the very midst of it all
through August. To watch to hear mowing to see the
carts to take part in the harvest is to share the summer in a
way I love. You will really swoon at the view or at least I shall
expect you to!! And we shall eat out of doors eat the hay with
trimmings and get a little boat and float on the lake and put up
a hammock and swing in the pines and paddle in the little stream.
Don't you love to paddle ?

I must end this letter. It's so dull. Forgive it. Now a pale sun
like a half-sucked peppermint is melting in the sky. The cat has
come in. Even his poor little paws are cold, they feel like rubber.
He is sitting on my feet singing his song. Wingley does not only
purr; there is a light soprano note in his voice as well. He is very
nearly human because of the love that is lavished on him. And

= 426 =

Letter s 1921

now that his new coat is grown he is like a cat in a bastick tied
with ribbon He has an immense ruff and long curly new fur.
Cats are far nicer than dogs. I shall write a cat story one day.
But I shall give the cat to C.'s dressmakers, the Misses R. What
appalling dressmakers they were! They seemed to fit all their
patterns on to cottage loaves life-size ones or on to ham
sandwiches with heads and feet. But it was worth it to have gone
in to their house and heard them as one did.

Goodbye for now.

P.S. Dearest Brett.

Your letter has just come.

Stop!

You are not to send a gramophone.

Please stop at once.

None of us can possibly afford such a thing. You will be bank-
rupt after it. Don't do anything of the kind! Only millionaires
can buy them, I know. I scan the papers! But for the really
frightfully dear thought a thousand thanks. Yes, I will go to
Paris if Manoukhin answers. But I can get no reply. Which is
disappointing.

December 79, 7927

Since I wrote to you I have been in my familiar land of counter-
pane. The cold got through as I knew it would and one wing
only wags. As to Doctor Manoukhin I got the Mountain to
'phone Paris yesterday and found he was absent and only there
from time to time, tres rarement. It was impossible for the secre-
tary to say when. So that doesn't sound very hopeful. I am disap-
pointed. I had made him my " miracle." One must have a miracle.
Now I'm without one and looking round for another. . . . Have
you any suggestions ?

It has been a fine day. The sun came into this room all the
afternoon but at dusk an old ancient wind sprang up and it is
shaking and complaining. A terrible wind a wind that one
always mercifully forgets until it comes again. Do you know the
kind of wind I mean! It brings nothing but memories and by
memories I mean those that one cannot without pain remember.
It always carries my brother to me. Ah, Brett, I hope with all my

= 427 =

Letters 1921

heart you have not known anyone who has died young long
before their time. It is bitterness. But what am I thinking of? I
wanted to write you a Christmas letter. I wanted to wish you joy.
I can in spite of everything in life. I can, and by that I don't mean
that it's any desperate difficulty. No, let us rejoice that we are
alive and know each other and walk the earth at the same time.
Let us make plans, and fulfil them, and be happy when we
meet, and laugh a great deal this year and never cry. Above all,
let us be friends. There was that in your last letter which made
you dearer to me than ever before. I don't know what it was.
It was as though you came out of the letter and touched me and
smiled and I understood your goodness.

To Thomas and Bessie Moult December 20, 1921

I cannot let Christmas come without sending you both my
love and greetings. I love Christmas. ... In that other world
where wishes are laws, there would be a great shining wreath
of holly on the door knocker, lights at all the windows, and a
real party going on inside. We meet in the hall and warmly
re-clasp hands. Good Heavens! I'm not above a tree, coloured
candles and crackers are you ? Wait. We shall have it all or
something better! I will never despair of a real gay meeting, one
of these days, for us all. It's always only an accident that the day
is not fine, that one happens for the moment to be under an
umbrella. It will all flash and sparkle, I truly believe that, sooner
than we expect. The very fact that we rebel at our little terms
of imprisonment is proof that freedom is our real element.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett December 22, 7927

I'm very interested by what you say about Vera. Isn't the end
extraordinarily good. It would have been so easy to miss it. She
carried it right through. I admired the end most, I think. Have
you never known a Wemyss ? Oh, my dear, they are very plenti-
ful! Few men are without a touch. And I certainly believe that
husbands and wives talk like that. Lord, yes!

You are so very superior, Miss, in saying half an hour would
be sufficient. But how is one to escape ? And also, though it may

= 428 =

Letters 7927

be " drivel " in cold blood, it is incredible the follies and foolish-
ness we can bear if we think we are in love. Not that I can stand
the Wemyss " brand." No. But I can perfectly comprehend Lucy
standing it. I don't think I agree about Lucy either. She could not
understand her father's " intellect " but she had a sense of humour
(except where her beloved was concerned). She certainly had her
own opinions and the Aunt was very sodden at the funeral be-
cause of the ghastly effect of funerals! They make the hardest
of us melt and gush. But all the same I think your criticism is
awfully good of the Aunt, of the whole book in fact. Only one
thing, my hand on my heart, I could swear to. Never could
Elizabeth be influenced by me. If you knew how she would scorn
the notion, how impossible it would be for her. There is a kind
of turn in our sentences which is alike but that is because we are
worms of die same family. But that is all.

About Paris. I have now received the doctor's address from a
secretary of the Institute and have written him again to-day.
If I hear I will let you know. It seems more hopeful now that I
send direct. I am still in bed and dear knows when I shall be out.
A reply from Manoukhin would be the only thing, I think. (I am
a bit disheartened to be bac\ here again with all the old para-
phernalia of trays and hot-water bottles. Accursed disease!)

To S. S. Koteliansky December 24, 1921

I have heard from M. to-day. A good letter very. As soon as
I am well enough to get up I shall go to Paris. He says the treat-
ment takes 15 weeks if one is not much advanced. But no matter.
It is fearfully exciting to have heard!

To Anne Estelle Rice Christmas Eve, 7927

Suddenly this afternoon as I was thinking of you there flashed
across my inward eye a beautiful poppy that we stood looking
at in the garden of the Hotel at Looe. Do you remember that
marvellous black sheen at the base of the petal and the big
purplish centre? Then that took me back to our improvised
cafe just the same table with a bottle on it, and ourselves, out
of space and time ... for the moment! And from that I began

= 429 =

Letters 1921

to think of your tres blue eyes that I love so and your neck, and
the comb you wore in your hair the last time you dined with us
and a pink pinny you had on the first time I saw you in the
studio in Paris. These things are not the whole of my Anne, but
they are signs and tokens of her and for the want of a thousand
others what wouldn't I give at this moment to put my arms
round her and give her a small squeeze.

I shall be in Paris, I hope, from May on this year. Will you by
any chance be there? I am going on a preliminary visit almost
at once to see a specialist there a Russian and to have some
teeth pulled out and pulled in again. Then I come back here
to save pennies for my flight in May. I believe this Russian cures
people with my complaint. He sounds wonderful.

It's so long since I have heard of any of the old set. Where are
they? New friends are not never can be the same, and all
mine seem to be people I know as a writer, not as a common
garden human being. Whether they care personally for the smell
of tangerines or not I haven't the least idea. I can't really care
for people who are cut off at the head. I like them to exist as far
as their hearts au moins. Don't ever come to Switzerland, Anne.
It's all scenery. One gets the same on a Mountain Railway at 6d.
a go and get off after the last bumping. But the Swiss!! They
are always cutting down trees and as the tree falls the hausfrau
rushes out of the kitchen to see, waving a pig-knife and shouting
a joyful voilal I believe they are full of virtue but virtue is a bad
boisson to be full of.

To Lady Ottoline Morrell December 27, 7927

How lovely the handkerchiefs are with the little swans sailing
round them. They arrived on Christmas Day its very self, too.
You know how one watches for that Christmas post at this dis-
tance I was in bed too, which made my longing even more
fearful. I had to wait until someone crept up the stairs instead of
lurking at the door. I really feel that I could write an entire
book, with each chapter beginning, "The post did not come
that day " or " That morning the post was late." And I at least
would thrill and shiver with the horror of it. It's awful to spend
such emotions on postmen! But there it is.

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We had a "proper" Christmas even to a Tree, thanks to
the Mountain, who revels in such things and would like all the
year to be December. The house whispered with tissue paper
for days, a pudding appeared out of the bosom of the air and
the sight of that fired even my gentle Ernestine who began, from
the sounds, to gambol on the ground floor and toss the iron rings
of the stove on to the floor. The crackers, however, would not
pull, which cast a little gloom over M., who relishes crackers, and
the mottoes which were German were very depressing: " Mad-
chen, mocht ich Frau dir sehen."

I am glad it is all over but the traces, the signs remain for a
long time. . . .

To O. Raymond Drey December 27, 7921

My dear Drey, what a shockingly proud man you must be!
I should do no more work. I should just look at him, puff out
my chest and say to the passers-by, " II est a nous."

The butler impressed me terribly. At this height and among
these mountains we scarcely dare think of butlers. My one do-
mestic, the gentle Ernestine, who weighs about 14 stone, bounds
up and down the stairs like a playful heifer and bursts into a
strange, terrible singing whenever she hears a pig being killed,
is civilizations away from butlers. When I come to see you
I expect the second footman to take my umbrella and I shall
curtsey to Anne and present a bouquet. You are very grand but
not so grand as Willy. His party must have been a very powerful
affair, Drey. Talk about numbered cloakroom tickets. Willy
will have to have them for his wives, next time. He will be a
terribly busy man in Heaven. I am sure the restitution of con-
jugal rights is a specialite de la maison, there.

My cat has just leapt on my bed and begun to clean his face
and his two little chimneys. It's a queer thing. He started life
in a humble way, like One greater than he he was born in a
stable and was just an ordinary little black and white kitten. But
since he came here he has turned into a real Persian with an
enormous ruff and feathers on his legs. I suppose it is the cold.
The Swiss, of course, don't keep cats. They are frightened a cat
might eat the old cabbage stalk they are saving up for the baby
to cut its teeth on. They are a thrifty race.

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By the way, I suppose you do not know the address of a first-
class dentist in Paris ? I have to go to Paris very soon and while
I am there I want to put my head into the jaws of a really good
painless modern man. Is there such an one? If you would send
me a card with his name and address I would be awfully grateful.
Are you wondering why I ask you ? I have a feeling you know
all these things. I am going as soon as my feet are on the earth
again, for my teeth are falling like autumn leaves. They have
very large wooden buns here for tea with nails in them and pow-
dered glass on the top, expres pour les anglais. I defy anyone
to grind them to powder without an accident!

To Sydney Scfiiff December 28, 1921

I have chosen to-day to write because Manoukhin has come
a great deal nearer. He has told me that if I go to Paris he will
treat me by his new method and there is the word guerison
shining in his letter. I believe every word of it; I believe in him
implicitly. As soon as I am out of bed (the cold has been too
cold) Jones will pack the boxes and I shall go to see him and
arrange to return to town in May. I want to spend the winter
here. But in May I shall go to Paris for the course of treatment
which takes 15 weeks. (Manoukhin is not only a doctor. He is
a whole new stage on the journey. I hardly know why.) His
treatment consists of applications of the rayons X.

One word I must say about Joyce. Having re-read The Portrait
it seems to me on the whole awfully good. We are going to buy
Ulysses. But Joyce is (if only P. didn't think so, too) immensely
important. Some time ago I found something so repellent in his
work that it was difficult to read it. It shocks me to come upon
words, expressions and so on that I'd shrink from in life. But
now it seems to me the seeking after Truth is so by far and away
the most important thing that one must conquer all minor aver-
sions. They are unworthy.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett January 9, 7922

You are right. I think of Manoukhin more than anyone can
imagine. I have as much faith in him as Koteliansky has. I hardly

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dare think of him fully. No, I dare not. It is too much. But about
money. I have ,100 saved for this Last Chance and as soon as
I know he can help me I shall make more. Work is ease, joy,
light to me if I am happy. I shall not borrow from anyone if I
can possibly help it.

I am not frightened of money, for some blessed reason. I know
I can make it. Once I am well I can make all I want. I don't
want much. In fact, my plans go on and on, and when I go to
sleep I dream the treatment is over and I am running, or walking
swiftly and carelessly by and no one knows I have been ill, no
one hands me a chair in a shop. Ah, it is too much !

This awful writing is frozen writing, Brett. I am writing with
two icicles for fingers. We have 6 feet of snow here, all is frozen
over and over, even the bird's tails. Is not that hideous cruelty?
I have a large table for these precious atoms daily, and the first
cocoanut in Switzerland is the Big Joint. They can't yet believe
in the cocoanut. It overwhelms them. A special issue of the Bird
Times is being issued, the bird who discovered it is to be photo-
graphed, interviewed and received at Pluckingham Palace and
personally conducted tours are being arranged. What with them
and my poor dear pussy-wee, who got out to-day and began to
scratch, scratched away, kept at it, sat up, took a deep
breath, scratched his ear, wiped his whiskers, scratched on,
SCRATCHED, until finally only the tip of a quivering tail was to
be seen and he was rescued by the gentle Ernestine. He wrung
his little paws in despair. Poor lamb! to think he will not be able
to scratch through until April. I suppose snow is beautiful. I
hate it. It always seems to me a kind of humbug a justification
of mystery, and I hate mystery. And then there is no movement.
All is still, white, cold, deathly, eternal. Every time I look out I
feel inclined to say I refuse it. But perhaps if one goes about and
skims over, all is different.

I'm working at such a big story that I still can only just see
the end in my imagination ... the longest by far I've ever
written. It's called The Doves' Nest. But winter is a bad black
time for work, I think. One's brain gets congealed. It is very
hard.

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To S. S. Koteliansfy January 13, 1922

What a supremely good piece of translation is this story by
Bunin in The DiaU One simply cannot imagine it better done
and I am, with everybody else, deeply grateful for the opportunity
of reading it.

Bunin has an immense talent. That is certain. All the same
there's a limitation in this story, so it seems to me. There is some-
thing hard, inflexible, separate in him which he exults in. But
he ought not to exult in it. It is a pity it is there. He just stops
short of being a great writer because of it. Tenderness is a dan-
gerous word to use, but I dare use it to you. He lacks tenderness
and in spite of everything, tenderness there must be. ...

I have been in a horrible black mood lately, with feelings of
something like hatred towards " everybody." I think one reason
was I wrote a story I projected my little people against the
bright screen of Time and not only nobody saw, nobody cared.
But it was as if the story was refused. It is bitter to be refused.
Heaven knows one does not desire praise. But silence is hard
to bear. I know one ought not to care. One should go on quietly.
But there it is.

I am leaving for Paris in a fortnight. A chill and the weather
and money have kept me back. But I shall go then. Shall I write
to you from there ?

KoteliaHsky I HATE snow and icicles, and blizzards. It is
all such mock mystery and a wrestling with the enemy. I love
the fertile earth Spring. Wouldn't you like to be now this
instant, in a beech forest with the new leaves just out?

To Sydney Schiff January 15, 7922

About Joyce, and my endeavour to be doubly fair to him be-
cause I have been perhaps unfair and captious. Oh, I can't get
over a great great deal. I can't get over the feeling of wet linoleum
and unemptied pails and far worse horrors in the house of his
mind He's so terribly unfein; that's what it amounts to. There
is a tremendously strong impulse in me to beg him not to shock
me! Well, it's not very rare. I've had it before with men and

1 The Gentleman from San Francisco, translated by S. S. Kotchansky and D. H,
Lawrence.

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women many times in my life. One can stand much, but that
kind of shock which is the result of vulgarity and commonness,
one is frightened of receiving. It's as though one's mind goes
on quivering afterwards. . . . It's just exactly the reverse of the
exquisite rapture one feels in for instance that passage which ends
a chapter where Proust describes the flowering apple trees in the
spring rain.

Elizabeth has returned to the Chalet. In minute black breeches
and gaiters she looks like an infant bishop. When she has talked
about London and the literary " successes " I am thankful to be
out of it. But Elizabeth "fascinates" me; and I admire her for
working as she is working now, all alone in her big chalet. She
is courageous, very. And for some reason the mechanism of Life
hardly seems to touch her. She refuses to be ruffled and she is
not ruffled. This is incomprehensible to me. I find it devilish,
devilish, devilish. Doors that bang, voices raised, smells of cook-
ing, even steps on the stairs are nothing short of anguish to me at
times. There is an inner calm necessary to writing, a sense of
equilibrium which is impossible to reach if it hasn't outward
semblance. But I don't know. Perhaps I am asking for what can-
not be.

I must end this letter. The sun has been out to-day and yesterday,
and although there is about seven foot of snow and great icicles
hang from the window frames it is warm, still, delicious. I got
up to-day and I feel I never want to go to bed again . . . this air,
this radiance gives one a faint idea of what spring must be here
early spring. They say that by April the snows have melted and
even before all is quite gone the flowers begin. . . .

January 7922

I should like to have friends, I confess. I do not suppose I ever
shall. But there have been moments when I have realised what
friendship might be. Rare moments but never forgotten. I re-
member once talking it over with Lawrence and he said " We
must swear a solemn pact of friendship. Friendship is as binding,
as solemn as marriage. We take each other for life, through every-
thing for ever. But it's not enough to say we will do it. We must
swear!' At the time I was impatient with him. I thought it

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extravagant fanatic. But when one considers what this world is
like I understand perfectly why L. (especially being L.) made
such claims. ... I think, myself, it is pride which makes friend-
ship most difficult. To submit, to bow down to the other is not
easy, but it must be done if one is to really understand the being
of the other. Friendship isn't merging. One doesn't thereupon be-
come a shadow and one remain a substance. Yes, it is terribly
solemn frightening, even.

Please do not think I am all for Joyce. I am not. In the past
I was unfair to him and to atone for my stupidity I want to be
fairer now than I really feel. ... I agree that it is not all art.
I would go further. Little, to me, is art at all. It's a kind of stage
on the way to being Art. But the act of projection has not been
made. Joyce remains entangled in it, in a bad sense, except at rare
moments. There is, to me the great distinction between him and
Proust. . . .

To Anne Estelle Rice January 16, 7922

Can you tell me the name of a Hotel in Paris, that has an as-
censeur that really does go up and down and isn't too terribly un-
sympathetic ? I simply don't know one nowadays and shall have
to sit on my luggage while someone looks. Last time I stayed at
one that Cook's recommended with one of those glass-topped beds
and strong tea coming out of the hot water tap. They plucked
me to my last pinfeather for these luxuries. I don't mind where it
is as long as the lift will go up as well as down so important,
that. In Switzerland the lifts only go down, never up. It's a mys-
tery to me. I'd like Fergusson's views on it or Blum's.

K. : " How does it happen that this lift never goes up ? "

Swiss (smiling) : " It always goes down, Madame."

K. : ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Swiss: 'l ! ! i I l" !

/

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett January 20, 7922

I can't get oflf to Paris just yet, for I am still in bed! Six weeks
to-day with one day's interval. I can't shake oflf this congestion and
ALL the machinery is out of order. Food is a horror. But I won't

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give in to it. If I can get well enough to go to Paris, it's all I ask.
I am fighting for that now. ... I wish I had got there before
this last bout. I was so much stronger than I am now. But this
is a bad black month, darling. There is a new moon on the 27th.
Look at it and wish. I will look at it and wish for you. I feel so in
your mood listless, tired, my energy flares up and won't last.
I'm a wood fire. However, I swear to finish my big story by the
end of this month. It's queer when I am in this mood I always
write as though I am laughing. I feel it running along the pages.
If only the reader could see the snail in its shell with the black
pen!

I have just heard from de la Mare about my little family in the
Mercury and from America where another story of the same peo-
ple is coming out in The Dial. I feel like Lottie's and Kezia's
mother after the letters I have got this month. It is surprising and
very lovely to know how people love little children the most
unexpected people.

Here's the doctor stumping up the stairs.

To Lady Ottoline Morrell January 7922

I tremble to think of the time we spend in bed wwhappily. It is
out of all proportion. I am fleeing to Paris on Monday next to see
if that Russian can bake me or boil me or serve me up in some
more satisfying way I suppose the snow is very good for one.
But it's horrid stuff to take and there's far too much of it. Immense
fringes of icicles hang at our windows. Awful looking things
like teeth and every Sunday the Swiss fly into the forest on
little sledges shrieking Ho-je! Ho-je positively makes my blood
curdle. So off I go on Monday with the Mountain very breathless
carrying two large suitcases and begging the suitcases' pardon
when she bumps them into things. I shall only go to spy out
the land and buy some flowers and wallow in a hot bath. But if the
Russian says he can cure me, M. and I shall go to Paris in the
Spring and live there for a time. One writes the word " cure "
but but I don't know.

I must ask you if you have read Congreve lately. I have just
finished The Way of the World. Do read it! for the sake of the
character Mrs. Millamant. I think she is so exquisitely done when

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she first appears " full sail " and tells the others how she curls her
hair. The maid is marvellous in that little scene, too, and the other
scene is where she decides finally to have Mirabel. That little con-
versation between the two seems to me really ravishing in its own
way It's so delicate so gay But it's much best read aloud.
What a brilliant strange creature Congreve was so anxious not
to be considered a writer, but only a plain gentleman. And Vol-
taire's shrewd reply, " If you had been only a gentleman I would
not have come to see you "... I love reading good plays ; and
so does M. We have such fun talking them over afterwards. In
fact, the pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with an-
other who shares the same books. It is one of the many pleasures
of our solitary life. Pleasures we have ever increasing. I would
not change this fynd of life for any other. There are moods of
course when we long for people. But they pass, leaving no regret,
no disillusionment, no horrid remembrance And one does have
time to work. But I wish my new book were a better one. I am
terrified of it. But it can't be helped now. M. is writing hard, and
I am in the middle of what looks like a short novel.
I am so glad you liked The Veil. 1 There is one poem:

Why has the rose faded and fallen
And these eyes have not seen. . . .

It haunts me. But it is a state of mind I know so terribly well
That regret for what one has not seen and felt for what has
passed by unheeded. Life is only given once and then I waste it.
Do you feel that?

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett January 26, 7922

I'm deadly tired to-night! I wrote and finished a story yesterday
for The Sketch? The day after that happens is always a day when
one feels like a leaf on the ground one can't even flutter. At the
same time there is a feeling of joy that another story is finished. I
put it in such a lovely place, too. The grounds of a convent in
Spring with pigeons flying up in the blue and big bees climbing in
and put of the freezias below. If I lived in the snow long I should
become very opulent. Pineapples would grow on every page, and

1 The Veil and Other Poems, by Walter de la Mare.

2 Taking the Veil see The Doves' Nest.

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giant bouquets would be presented to each character on his ap-
pearance. Elizabeth was here yesterday and we lay in my room
talking about flowers until we were really quite drunk, or I was.
She describing " a certain very exquisite Rose, single, pale
yellow with coral tipped petals " and so on. I kept thinking of
little curly blue hyacinths and white violets and the bird-cherry.
My trouble is I had so many flowers when I was little, I got to
know them so well that they are simply the breath of life to me.
It's no ordinary love; it's a passion. Wait one day I shall have
a garden and you shall hold out your pinny. In the meantime our
cat has got his nose scratched beyond words and he's in such a
condition that he looks as though he has been taking part in a box-
ing match up a chimney. He is to have lessons on the fiddle this
Spring. All the BEST cats can play at least Hey-diddle-diddle. He
must learn. The strings of his fiddle will be of wool, of course,
and the bow will have a long tassel on it. I believe he can play the
piano. He sits up and plays with his two front paws:

Nellie Ely
Caught a fly
Put it in her tea!

This exquisite morceau was in my Pianoforte Tutor, words and all.
Who can have composed it ? However, it suits Wingley. It's a sub-
ject he can feel sympathy about. He comes down with such a ter-
rific whack on the FLY ! He is the most unthinkable lamb, really,
and I am sorry if I am silly about him.

But I meant to write about the Flu. You are nervous of it, aren't
you ? But you can ward it off with food. MILK, my dear. That's
not hard to take.

I'm tired of telling you to eat. I now command you to drink. Get
the milk habit, and become a secret tippler. Take to drink, I im-
plore you. What the devil does it matter how fat one gets, we shall
go to Persia where fatness alone is beauty.

To John Galsworthy Paris

January 31, 7922

Your letter came just as I was on the point of leaving home.
How happy I am that you liked At the Bay and that Madame
likes my little children and the dog! But it is not your praise that

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I value most, although I am honoured and proud to have that.
It is the fact you are watching my work, which is the most precious
encouragement.

Yes, I have been working a great deal, but in my horrid bed
where I've been for the past two months. I hope there are no beds
in Heaven. But I managed to finish a long story there and several
short ones.

Now I have come to Paris to see a Russian doctor who promises
to give me new Wings for old. I have not seen him yet so
though it's still a miracle one believes. When I have seen him
I shall go back to Montana again. After these long months in the
mountains it's the flower shops I long to see. I shall gaze into them
as little boys are supposed to gaze into pastry-cook's. . . .

I hope you are well. It would be very delightful to think we
might meet one day. But please remember how grateful I am.

To S. S. Koteliansfy Victoria Palace Hotel

6 Rue Blaise Desgoffe
Rue de Rennes
February i, 1922

I have seen Manoukhine. Yes, one has every confidence in such
a man. He wishes me to begin the treatment at once. I am taking
steps to try to do so, but it is not quite easy to arrange. It will cost
me much money. I have ^100 saved but I must make not only
another ^100 but enough to live on here and for special food and
so on. Also I have L. M. to keep as well until I am strong enough
to walk about and so on. It is all difficult, and for some reason I find
it hard to accept all its difficulties, as one must. Perhaps for one
thing it is not nice in a city. I had forgotten how women parade
about, idle and unworthy, and how ignoble are the faces of men.
It shocks me to see these faces. I want more than anything to
cry! Does that sound absurd? But the lack of life in all these faces
is terribly sad.

Forgive me. Let me speak of something else for a moment.
While I was waiting at the clinic to-night the doors were all open
and in the doctor's cabinet people were talking Russian. They
talked all together. Doctor M.'s voice was above the other voices,
but there was a continual chorus all speaking. I cannot tell you

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how I love Russian. When I hear it spoken it makes me think of
course always of Tchekhov. I love this speech. I thought also of
you ; and I wished you were with me.

Now a bell is striking as though it turned over in its sleep to
strike. It's very late. Good night.

February 3, 1922

There is no answer to this letter. But I wanted to tell you some-
thing very good that happened to-day. Yesterday I decided that I
must take this treatment and I telephoned M. I was sitting alone in
the waiting-room of the clinique reading Goethe's conversations
with Eckermann when M. came in. He came quickly over to me,
took my hand and said simply, " Vous avez decide de commencer
avec le traitement. Cest tres bien. Bonne sante! " And then he
went as quickly out of the room saying, " Tout de suite " (pro-
nounced "toot sweet" for he speaks very little French). But this
coming in so quickly and so gently was a beautiful act, never to
be forgotten, the act of someone very good.

Oh, how I love gentleness. All these people everywhere are like
creatures at a railway station shouting, calling, rushing, with
ugly looks and ways. And the women's eyes like false stones
hard, stupid there is only one word, corrupt. I look at them and
I think of the words of Christ, " Be ye therefore perfect even as
your Father in Heaven is perfect" But what do they care?
How shall they listen ? It is terribly sad. Of course, I don't want
them to be all solemn or Sundayfied. God forbid. But it seems
there is so little of the spirit of love and gaiety and warmth in the
world just now. Why all this pretence? But it is true it is not
easy to be simple, it is not just (as A. T.'s friend used to say) a
sheep sneezing.

It is raining. There is a little hyacinth on my table a very
naive one.

To Anne Estelle Rice February 4, 7922

Just a mot to say how grateful I am for the address of this hotel.
It's just what I wanted, and it simply flows with hot baths.
I have a heaven-kissing room au 6me with a piece of sky outside
and a view into the windows opposite which I love. It's so nice

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to watch la belle dame opposite bring her canary in when it rains
and put the hyacinth out. I have decided to stay in Paris and not
go back to that Switzerland. There is a man here did I tell you
about him? (It sounds rather an ambiguous beginning, by the
way). But enfin, there is a man here who treats my maladie with
the X-rays and I am going to him for this treatment. I had the
first yesterday and feel at this moment full of the rayons bleus
rather like a deep sea fish. But he promises to cure me by the sum-
mer. It's hard to believe it. But if it is true, I shall take a Puffi to
your very door an' come an' have tea with David out of a very
little small teapot. The only fly in the ointment is the terrific ex-
pense. It's 300 francs a time. However, I have been fortunate with
my work lately and I'll just have to do a double dose of it until
this is paid off. Money is a bore, but I never take it dead seriously,
and I don't care if I haven't a sou as long as I can leap and fly
alone.

You know I really do expect you in the SPRING. I feel the
winter is over already and I read in the Daily Mail yesterday that
the Dog's Mercury is out. But what is the Dog's Mercury ? And
does the Dog know? I hope he's very pleased but I expect he just
looks at it and bolts it and goes on with a kind of " So that's that "
air. Sad for the Dog's Mercury, don't you think ?

Well, dearest, I feel a bit weak in the pen this morning, and in-
clined to laugh at rien you know the feeling. It's a fool of a day
here, sunny and wintry. Fat old men lose their hats and cry houp-la
as they stagger after them.

To J. M. Murry February 7, 1922

I have had no news from you to-day yet (3 P.M.). I expect it is
the snow. Arctic conditions prevail in Switzerland, so the papers
say. I hope that you manage to keep warm and that Wingley's
tail is not frozen.

Advise me will you ? I am looking for a tiny flat very small
a mouse's hole just big enough to nibble a pen in. If I find
anything suitable I shall take it until the end of May and L. M.
will look after it to save money on servants and so on. But (this
is where I want your advice) to whom can I apply for a reference ?
They are sure to ask me for at least two. Can you think of any-

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body? I wish you could answer this as soon as possible. A card
will suffice, as they say. It's rather urgent. Flats are so scarce here
and I want to be settled as soon as possible once something is
found. Of course, it may be all a wild goose chase. L. M. has gone
of? to an agent this afternoon. But there it is!

I have started a new Shakespeare note book. I hope you will let
me see yours one day. I expect they will be legion by that time.
And, reading with the point of view of taking notes, I begin to
see those marvellous short stories asleep in an image as it were.
For instance,

..." Like to a vagabond flag upon the stream,

Goes to and back, lackeying the varying tide,
To rot itself with motion."

That is terrible, and it contains such a terribly deep psychological
truth. " That rots itself "... and the idea of it returning and re-
turning, never swept out to sea finally. You may think you have
done with it for ever, but comes a change of tide and there is that
dark streak reappeared, more sickeningly rotten still. I under-
stand that better than I care to. I mean alas ! I have proof of
it in my own being.

There are awful good oranges to be had in Paris. But there's
nothing else good that I know nothing fresh, sound, or sweet.
But mine's a partial view, of course. I have done with cities for
ever. I want flowers, rather sandy soil, green fields, and a river
not too deep to paddle in, also a large number of ancient books
and a small but very pretty cow. In fact, I should like the cow
to be strikingly pretty. I shall put it in the advertisement. " No
plain cows may apply." No, I can't do that. It's too cruel. But it's
an airy-fairy herd for a long time, I'm afraid. How is your work
going ? If I am very dull for five weeks, you must remember that
for 5 weeks this treatment makes one rather worse. After that
you will have to snatch my letters (like snapdragons) all Waging
out of the postman's bag.

To William Gerhardi February 8, 7922

I can't tell you how honoured I am by your asking me to be
Godmother. I have the warmest feelings towards your little

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nouveau-ne and shall watch its first steps with all the eagerness a
parent could desire. I cast about in my mind as to what to send it.
Not a silver mug. No, not a mug. They only tilt them over their
noses and breathe into them. Besides, the handle of mine, being
silver, was always red hot, so that I had to lap up what was in-
side, like a kitten. . . . The matter I see demands time for con-
sideration. But very seriously, I am most happy Cobden-
Sanderson liked your book. I am sure it will be a success. And I look
forward to reading it again and making other people read it.
All success to you and many many thanks.

Please do not praise me too much. It is awfully nice to be
praised, but at the same time it makes me hang my head. I have
done so little. I should have done so much more. There are these
rows of stories, all waiting. All the same, I can't deny that praise
is like a most lovely present, a bright bouquet coming to me (but
gently! I hope) out of the air.

Don't imagine for one moment though, that I think myself
wonderful ! That is far, far from the truth. I take writing too se-
riously to be able to flatter myself. I've only begun. The only story
that satisfies me to any extent is the one you understand so well,
The Daughters of the Late Col., and parts of Je ne parle pas. But
Heavens, what a journey there is before one!

By the way, for proof of your being a writer you had only to
mention a bath chair and it crept into your handwriting. It was
a queer coincidence. I had just been writing about a bath chair my-
self and poor old Aunt Aggie, who had lived in one and died in
one glided off, so that one saw her in her purple velvet steering
carefully among the stars and whimpering faintly as was her ter-
restial wont when the wheel jolted over a particularly large one.
But these conveyances are not to be taken lightly or wantonly.
They are terrible things. No less.

I hope if you do come to Paris at Easter you will come and see
me. By then I expect I shall have a little flat. I am on the track
of a minute appartment with a wax-bright salon where I shall sit
like a bee writing short stories in a honeycomb. But these retreats
are hard to find.

I am here undergoing treatment by a Russian doctor, who claims
to have discovered a cure for tuberculosis by the application of
X-rays. The only real trouble is it's terribly expensive. So much so

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that when I read the price I felt like Tchekhov wanted Anna Iva-
nova to feel when she read his story in a hot bath as though
someone had stung her in the water and she wanted to run sob-
bing out of the bath-room. But // it all comes true it means one will
be invisible once more no more being offered chairs and given
arms at sight. A close season for ever for hot-water bottles and
glasses of milk. Well, people don't realise the joy of being in-
visible it's almost the greatest joy of all. But I'll have to write
at least a story a week until next May, which is a little bit
frightening.

Oxford, from the papers, sounds very sinister. And why when
people receive anonymous boxes of chocolate do they always wait
to hand them round until friends come to tea ? What ghouls they
are, to be sure! Professor X., who saved the lives of Doctor and
Mrs. R. sounds profoundly moved. I should feel very tempted
were I in Oxford to hm hm better not. No doubt the
secret police has steamed this letter over a cup of warm tea. . . .

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett St. Valentines Day

February 14, 7922

I do hope your tooth is better. Why have we got teeth ? Or why
haven't we brass ones. I cling to mine but I feel they will all go
one day and the dentist is such a terrifying animal. I hate to think
of dear Tchekhov in Nice, with toothache, where he says, " I was
in such pain I crawled up the wall." That just describes it. It is
maddening and exhausting to have toothache; I do hope yours
is over.

Where is your little house! It is somewhere but where?
Sometimes I think it must be in the branches of a tree. Do let me
know. I think you are very wise not to take a big one. Little
houses are always best. A house is like an ark one rides the
flood in it. Little ones bob over the waves and can rest on the
extreme tops of mountains much better than great big ones.
Can I be official Godmother to the garden? I should like to
STARTLE you with the most superb things and to send you seeds
from the far corners of the earth and have a boronia plant below
the studio window. Do you know the scent of boronia? My
grandma and I were very fond of going to a place called McNab's

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Tea Gardens and there we used to follow our noses and track
down the boronia bushes. Oh, how I must have tired the darling
out! It doesn't bear thinking about.

I hope G.'s show goes off well. It's not a very good moment
for selling pictures, or so I should think. There is an unrest in
every one. It's between light and dark, between winter and spring.
People are neither open or closed. The moment to catch them is
just a little bit later. I think the time for a picture show or to
publish a book is in the first days of real spring or just at the be-
ginning of Autumn. We are more alive then than at any other
time. We are in the mood to receive. It seems to me one ought to
link up all one's projects as much as possible with the earth's prog-
ress. The more I know of life the more I realise it is profoundly
influenced by certain laws, no matter how many people ignore
them. If we obey them our work goes well; we get our desire. It's
like studying the tides before we put out to sea in our fishing boat.
We are all sailors, bending over a great map. We ought to choose
the weather for our journey.

M. is here. Two days were enough to disgust him with Switzer-
land. He will stay here now, and at the end of March we are go-
ing into a flat which we have found. Awfully nice high up
but absurdly furnished, like the Arabian Nights by Poiret. Very
sumptuous and exotic. When you come to see me a little black boy
with a pineapple on his head will open the door.

This is an excellent hotel. We have two rooms at the end of a
passage, cut off from the rest of the hotel, with a bath-room and
masses of hot water. Rooms cost from 13 francs a day. There is a
lift, of course, and we can eat on the premises. If I were you I'd
come here at Easter. All rooms have hot and cold water. After 7
months in that cleanliness I feel water and soap are the great
necessities. M. and I have settled down according to programme,
as we always do. We work, play chess, read, make our tea and
drink it out of our small bowls. I can do nothing but get up and
lie down, of course, and Manoukhin says in three weeks I shall
have a real reaction and then be able to do even less than that for the
next three weeks. It's rather like waiting to have an infant
new born health. My horrid time ought to be just over by Easter.

I must begin work. Seven stories sit on the doorstep. One has its
foot inside. It is called The Fly. I must finish it to-day. This is a

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hard moment for work don't you feel ? It's hard to get life into
it. The sun is not up yet. Oh Spring, hurry, hurry! Every year I
long more for Spring.

It's a pig of a day a London fog outside the windows and I
have to pull my stockings on. Think of pulling one's stockings
on like winking without noticing even. Can that happen to
me again ?

February 26, 7922

What is it doing in London to-day ? Here it is Spring. For days
past it has been warm, blue and gold, sunny, faint, languishing,
soft, lovely weather. Isn't it the same over there ? The reckless lift
boy says " dans un mois il serait pleine etc! " That's the kind of
large remark I love the French for. They have very nearly hung
out their sun-blinds; they have quite turned the puddings into
little ices in frills. But why can't I send some of this weather over
to you? Can't it be done? Look in the glass. If there is a very
bright gay sunbeam flittering on your hair I sent it from Paris

expres. At any rate, you are putting out new leaves, crepe de
chine ones and baby ribbon ones. The craving for a new hat is
fearful in the Spring. A light, crisp, fresh new-curled hat after
these winter dowdies. I suffer from it now. If I had one I should
wear it in bed ! But the barber is cheaper. He came yesterday and
gave me a coup de fer to my wool. Now it's all waves on top. (I
have a great tendre for barbers.)

About painting. I agree. Good as he is I shall never forget seeing
a ballet-dancer of his it was the last thing I saw of his at his
studio. A tf/to-dancer. A big, big meaty female dressed in a cauli-
flower! I don't mean to be horrid; but I do not and cannot under-
stand how one can paint such pictures. They are so dull they make
me groan. Hang it all, Brett a picture must have charm or
why look at it ? It's the quality I call tenderness in writing, it's the
tone one gets in a really first-chop musician. Without it you can
be as solid as a bull and I don't see what's the good.

Talking about feeling. I had a shock yesterday. I thought my
new book would enrage people because it had too much feeling

and there comes a long review talking of the " merciless analy-
sis of the man of science." It's a mystery. If you do see my book

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read a story called The Voyage will you ? Keep it if you like
it. ...

Now I have arrived at the word " primroses " and I see them.
Delicate pinkish stems, and the earthy feeling as one picks them so
close to the damp soil. I love their leaves too, and I like to kiss
buds of primroses. One could kiss them away. They feel so mar-
vellous. But what about blue-bells? Oh dear! Blue-bells are just
as good. White ones, faint blue ones that grow in shady hollows,
very dark blue ones, pale ones. I had a whole spring full of blue-
bells one year with Lawrence. I shall never forget it. And it was
warm, not very sunny, the shadows raced over the silky grass and
the cuckoos sang.

Later. I then got up, had a big blue bath and a rather horrid
lunch. Then played chess, wrote for a couple of hours, had tea
and foie gras sandwiches and a long discussion with M. on " liter-
ature." Now the light is lighted. Outside there's a marvellous deep
lilac sky and I shall work again until dinner. It's strange how nice
it is here. One could scarcely be more free. The hotel servants
are just a little bit impudent and that's nice, too. There is no ser-
vility. I want to tell you that the barber was in raptures with your
still life. I think that's a great compliment, don't you? It grows
before one's eyes, said he. " II y a de la vie un mouvement dans
les feuilles." Excellent criticism! He, good man, was small and
fair and like all barbers smelt of a violet cachou and a hot iron.
He begged, he implored me to go to the cinema near here. Down-
stairs it was a little mixed but upstairs, on the balcon, there were
armchairs of such size and beauty that one could sleep in them.
. . . Oh Brett, how I like simple people not all simple people,
some are simple pigs but on the whole how much more sym-
pathetic than the 's this world! Whatever else they have,

they are alive. What I cannot bear is this half-existence. This life
is the head alone. It's deadly boring.

I think my story for you will be called Canaries. The large cage
opposite has fascinated me completely. I think and think about
them their feelings, their dreams, the life they led before they
were caught, the difference between the two little pale fluffy ones
who were born in captivity and their grandfather and grandmother
who knew the South American forests and have seen the im-
mense perfumed sea. . . . Words cannot express the beauty of

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that high shrill little song rising out of the very stones. ... It
seems one cannot escape Beauty ... It is everywhere.

I must end this letter. I have just finished a queer story called
The Fly. About a fly that falls into an inkpot and a Bank Manager.
I think it will come out in the Nation. The trouble with writing
is that one seethes with stories. One ought to write one a day at
least, but it is so tiring. When I am well I shall still live always far
away in distant spots where I can work and look undisturbed. No
more literary society for me ever. As for London, the idea is too
awful. I shall sneak up to Pond Street every now and again
very rarely indeed and I'll beg you not to let a soul know. It's no
joke, my dear, to get the letters I do from people who want to
meet one. It's frightening!

To William Gerhardi March 3, 7922

I meant, only the first chapter, not the " confession." * No, I
don't think that's a bit too " tragic." I can assure you I never stick
pins into my cat; he's far more likely to stick pins into me.

And the reason why I used the " florid " image 2 was that I was
writing about a garden party. It seemed natural, then, that the
day should close like a flower. People had been looking at flowers
all the afternoon, you see.

Thank you for your delightful letter. I shall write en quelques
jours. Just for the moment I'm having rather a fight with the
rayons X.

To Lady Ottoline Morrcll March 4, 7922

It's a joy to know that The Garden Party has given you pleasure
and especially that you like my poor old girls, the " Daughters."
I shall never forget lying on that wretched little sofa in Mentone
writing that story. I couldn't stop. I wrote it all day and on my
way back to bed sat down on the stairs and began scribbling the
bit about the meringues.

But your beautiful letter is too generous. I can't pretend praise
isn't awfully nice! And especially as I have not heard one word

1 Futility, in the original version.

2 " I had written jokingly to K. M. of a criticism [of The Garden Party] overheard
on that score." W. G.

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from anyone whom I know personally since the book appeared.
Reviews there have been and a few notes from strangers. But
that's not at all the same. I didn't expect to hear and yet my " sub-
conscious mind " has been intensely interested in whether there
are any letters or not! I don't think it's bad pride that makes one
feel like that. It's the " You feel that too ? You know what I was
trying to say," feeling which will be with me while life lasts. Or
so I feel. I treasure your letter, even though my Garden Party
doesn't deserve it.

Brett sent me a couple of pages from Vogue with reproductions
of Gertler's paintings.

I cannot say what is happening. I believe just blindly believe.
After all illness is so utterly mysterious that I don't see why one
shouldn't recover as mysteriously. I have a sneaking feeling all
the time that Coue is really the man and Coue would only charge
3d. where this man squeezes three hundred francs a time out of me.
Happily I have saved ^100 so I can pay. But if it is all my eye at the
end I shall look awfully silly and dear knows what will happen. But
anything, anything to be out of the trap to escape, to be free. No-
body understands that " depression " who has not known it. And
one cannot ever explain it. It's one's own secret. And one goes on re-
belling. Yes, I do, too. But don't you think we do feel it more than
other people because of our love of life ? Other people really don't
care so much. They have long periods of indifference, when they al-
most might as well be ill. But this poignant, almost unbearable
feeling that all is pasisng. People who are well do not and can-
not understand what it is. ...

We have not seen one French person to talk to. We live here like
hermits in our two caves at the end of a long dark passage. We
work, play chess, read, M. goes out and does the shopping; we
make tea and drink it out of dove-blue bowls. For some reason, it's
all very nice. I should hate to live in a city in fact I could not,
but this is only to last till May. And out of my window I look
on other windows and see the funny things people put on the
window sills, a hyacinth, a canary, a bottle of milk, and there's
a large piece of light, pale sky, and a feeling of Spring. Real
Spring. Yesterday on my way to the clinic I saw new leaves on
one little tree. It's quite warm too and sunny. We have planned
to go to Germany or to Austria this summer if if IF. . . .

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To the Hon. Dorothy Brett March 9, 7922

As to my being humble. Oh dear ! That's between me and my
God. I should retire behind 500 fans if anyone told me to be
humble ! You don't imagine that reviews and letters and requests
for photographs and so on make me proud, do you ? It's a deep
joy to know one gives pleasure to others, but to be told that in-
creases one's store of love not pride. Also what has it got to do
with one's work? I know what I have done and what I must do;
nothing and nobody can change that.

A whiff of London came from the last pages of your letter, a
whiff of years and years ago, a kind of ashy feeling. Oh, I shall
never go back to England again except en passant. Anywhere,
anywhere but England ! As I write there's a sound of sweet scold-
ing from the pigeons outside. Now it rains, now it's sunny. The
March lion is chasing the March lamb, but not very seriously.
The lamb does not mind much. They have an understanding.
I was reading La Fontaine's Fables in bed early. Do you know
them? They are fearfully nice too nice for words. What a
character the ant is, a little drop of bitterness and fury and slam-
ming her door in everybody's face; and the frog. I am so sorry for
him. He had a sister, too. She should have warned him. Instead
she stood by and gloated. La Fontaine must have been an adorable
man a kind of Fabre. Very distrait, very amorous. He didn't
even know his own children. He forgot their faces and passed
them by in the street. I don't expect they cared.

France is a remarkable country. It is I suppose the most civilised
country in the world. Bookshops swarm in Paris and the news-
papers are written in a way that English people would not stand
for one moment. There's practically no police news. True, they
did write about Landru's execution, but so well it might have
been de Maupassant! They are corrupt and rotten politically, that's
true. But oh, how they know how to live! And there is always
the feeling that Art has its place ... is accepted by everybody,
by the servants, by the rubbish man as well as by all others as
something important, necessary, to be proud of. That's what makes
living in France such a rest. If you stop your taxi to look at a tree
the driver says, " En effet cY arbre est bien jolie," and ten to one
moves his arms like branches. I learnt more about France from

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my servant at Mentone than anywhere. She was pure French,
highly highly civilized, nervous, eager, and she would have under-
stood anything on earth you wished to explain to her, in the ar-
tistic sense. The fact is they are always alive, never indifferent as
the English are. England has political freedom (a terrific great
thing) and poetry and lovely careless lavish green country. But
I'd much rather admire it from afar. English people are I think
superior Germans. (10 years hard labour for that remark.) But it's
true. They are the German ideal. I was reading Goethe on the
subject the other day. He had a tremendous admiration for them.
But all through it one feels " so might we Germans be if we only
knocked the heads of our police off."

It's fascinating to think about nations and their " significance "
in the history of the world. I mean in the spiritual history. Which
reminds me I've read lately 2 amazing books about present-day
Russia. One by Merejkovski and Zinaida Hippius and the other
by Bunin. It is a very extraordinary thing that Russia can be there
at our back door at furthest, and we know nothing, pay no at-
tention, hear nothing in English. These books were in French.
Both were full of threats. " You may think you have escaped.
But you have not escaped. What has happened to us will happen
to you. And worse. Because you have not heard our prayers."
The ghastly horror and terror of that life in Petrograd is impos-
sible to imagine. One must read it to know about it. But English
people, people like us, would never survive as some of these Rus-
sian intellectuals have survived. We would die of so many things,
vermin, fright, cold, hunger, even if we were not assassinated.
At this present moment life in Russia is rather like it was four
centuries ago. It has simply gone back four centuries. And anyone
who sympathizes with Bolshevism has much to answer for. Don't
you think that the head of Lenin is terrifying ? Whenever I see his
picture it comes over me it is the head of something between an
awful serpent and a gigantic bug. Russia is at present like an
enormous hole in the wall letting in Asia. I wonder what will
happen, even in our little time.

But do you really feel all beauty is marred by ugliness and the
lovely woman has bad teeth ? I don't feel quite that. For it seems
to me if Beauty were Absolute it would no longer be the kind of
Beauty it is. Beauty triumphs over ugliness in Life. That's what

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I feel. And that marvellous triumph is what I long to express. The
poor man lives and the tears glitter in his beard and that is so
beautiful one could bow down. Why ? Nobody can say. I sit in a
waiting-room where all is ugly, where it's dirty, dull, dreadful,
where sick people waiting with me to see the doctor are all marked
by suffering and sorrow. And a very poor workman comes in,
takes off his cap humbly, beautifully, walks on tiptoe, has a look
as though he were in Church, has a look as though he believed
that behind that doctor's door there shone the miracle of healing.
And all is changed, all is marvellous. It's only then that one sees
for the first time what is happening. No, I don't believe in your
frowsty housemaids, really. Life is, all at one and the same time,
far more mysterious and far simpler than we know. It's like reli-
gion in that. If we want to have faith, and without faith we die,
we must learn to accept. That's how it seems to me.

To William Gerhardi March 13, 7922

Please do not think of me as a kind of boa-constrictor who sits
here gorged and silent after having devoured your two delightful
letters, without so much as a " thank you." If gratitude were the
size and shape to go into a pillar box the postman would have
staggered to your door days ago. But I've not been able to send
anything tangible. I have been I am ill. In two weeks I shall
begin to get better. But for the moment I am down below in the
cabin, as it were, and the deck, where all the wise and happy peo-
ple are walking up and down and Mr. Gerhardi drinks a hundred
cups of tea with a hundred schoolgirls, is far away. . . . But I
only tell you this to explain my silence. I'm always very much
ashamed of being ill; I hate to plead illness. It's taking an unfair
advantage. So please let us forget about it. ...

I've been wanting to say how strange, how delightful it is
you should feel as you do about The Voyage. No one has men-
tioned it to me but Middleton Murry. But when I wrote that little
story I felt that I was on that very boat, going down those stairs,
smelling the smell of the saloon. And when the stewardess came
in and said, " We're rather empty, we may pitch a little," I can't
believe that my sofa did not pitch. And one moment I had a little
bun of silk-white hair and a bonnet and the next I was Fenella

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hugging the swan neck umbrella. It was so vivid terribly
vivid especially as they drove away and heard the sea as slowly
it turned on the beach. Why I don't know. It wasn't a memory
of a real experience. It was a kind of possession. I might have re-
mained the grandma for ever after if the wind had changed that
moment. And that would have been a little bit embarrassing for
Middleton Murry. . . . But don't you feel that when you write ?
I think one always feels it, only sometimes it is a great deal more
definite.

Yes, I agree with you the insulting references to Miss Brill
would have been better in French. Also there is a printer's error,
" chere " for " cherie." " Ma petite chere " sounds ridiculous. . . .

And yes, that is what I tried to convey in The Garden Party.
The diversity of life and how we try to fit in everything, Death
included. That is bewildering for a person of Laura's age. She
feels things ought to happen differently. First one and then an-
other. But life isn't like that. We haven't the ordering of it. Laura
says, " But all these things must not happen at once." And Life
answers, " Why not ? How are they divided from each other ? "
And they do all happen, it is inevitable. And it seems to me there
is beauty in that inevitability.

I wonder if you happened to see a review of my book in Time
and Tide. It was written by a very fierce lady indeed. Beating in
the face vyas nothing to it. It frightened me when I read it. I shall
never dare to come to England. I am sure she would have my blood
like the fish in Cock Robin. But why is she so dreadfully violent ?
One would think I was a wife beater, at least, or that I wrote all
my stories with a carving knife. It is a great mystery.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett March 15, 7922

If you were here, as it happens you wouldn't have listened to a
word of what I've been saying. Your eyes, green with envy would
have been fixed on, hypnotised by two very old apothecary's jars
on my dressing table. Murry, who is a very good nose-flattener
has been gazing at them for days and yesterday he bought them.
They are tall milk-white jars painted with a device in apple green,
faint yellow and a kind of astery pink. They have gold tops. On
one in exquisite lettering is the word Absinthii, on the other

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Theriaca. We intend to keep pot-pourri in them during our lives
and after our deaths we intend to put our ashes in them. I'm to be
Absinthii and M. Theriaca. So there they stand, our two little
coffins, on the dressing table and I've just sent M. out for some
fresh flowers to deck them with as I've not pot-pourri. But if I am
well enough to nose-flatten at Easter, you and I must go off with
our little purses in our little hands and glare !

Are you aware that there is an extremely fine Punch and Judy
in the Luxembourg? In a theatre of its own. Stalls 2d., Pit 2d. too.
The audience screams frightfully and some are overcome and
have to be led out. But there it is. We had better buy some com-
fits from the stall under the chestnut tree and go there, too. I be-
lieve there is a one-eyed thief who comes in, rather, looks round
a corner, who really is awful. M. said " he let out a yell himself "
and the little boy next to him roared. You know the kind of eye.
[A drawing of it.]

The weather is glorious here. Warming, sunny. So mild one
hears the voices of people in the open air, a sound I love in Spring,
and all the windows opposite mine stand wide open, so that I see
at one the daughter sewing with her mother, at another the Jap-
anese gentleman, at another two young people who have a way
of shutting their bedroom window very quickly and drawing the
curtain at most unexpected moments. ... I can't go out, though,
not even for a drive. I am and shall be for the next ten days rather
badly ill. In fact, I can only just get about at all. But Manoukhin
says the worse one is at this time the better later on. So there's
nothing to be done but to be rather dismally thankful.

Later. M. has just come in with 2 bunches of anemones, two
small tea plates and a cake of rose the soap. We have had our tea
and I'm going back to bed. What is a nuisance is I cannot work for
the moment and Shorter has ordered 13 stories, all at one go, to
be ready in July. So they are in addition to my ordinary work.
I shall have to spend a furious May and June.

The chestnuts are in big bud. Don't you love chestnut buds?
I shall have a look at them on Friday. I think they are almost the
loveliest buds of all.

Oh, your cinerarias. I wish I could see them. Do you know the
blue ones, too! And the faint, faint pink kind? Mother loved
them. We used to grow masses in a raised flower bed. I love the

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shape of the petals. It is so delicate. We used to have blue ones in
pots in a rather white and gold drawing room that had green
wooden sunblinds. Faint light, big cushions, tables with " photo-
graphs of the children " in silver frames, some little yellow and
black cups and saucers that belonged to Napoleon in a high cup-
board and someone playing Chopin beyond words playing
Chopin. ... Oh how beautiful Life is. How beautiful! A knock
at my door. The maid has come in to close the shutters. That's
such a lovely gesture. She leans forward, she looks up and the
shutters fold like wings.

To Sir Harold Beauchamp March 18, 7922

I have found it almost impossible to do any work so far, as the
treatment is exceedingly tiring. But my new book has been a suc-
cess and that is a comfort. It is extraordinary the letters I receive
from strangers all kinds of people. I have certainly been most
fortunate as a writer. It is strange to remember buying a copy
of The Native Companion on Lambton Quay and standing un-
der a lamppost with darling Leslie to see if my story had been
printed.

The more I see of life the more certain I feel that it's the people
who live remote from cities who inherit the earth. London, for
instance, 'is an awful place to live in. Not only is the climate
abominable but it's a continual chase after distraction. There's no
peace of mind no harvest to be reaped out of it. And another
thing is the longer I live the more I turn to New Zealand. I thank
God I was born in New Zealand. A young country is a real heri-
tage, though it takes one time to recognise it. But New Zealand
is in my very bones. What wouldn't I give to have a look at it!

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett March 19, 1922

Oh, I am so longing to get over this last crisis and begin to climb
the hill so that by the time you come I shall not be such a }ob-
in-the-ashes. Manoukhin says in eight days now the worst will be
over. It's such a queer feeling. One burns with heat in one's hands
and feet and bones. Then suddenly you are racked with neuritis,
but such neuritis that you can't lift your arm. Then one's head be-

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gins to pound. It's the moment when if I were a proper martyr
I should begin to have that awful smile that martyrs in the flames
put on when they begin to sizzle !

But no matter, it will pass. . . .

It is real spring here, really come. Little leaves are out. The
air is like silk. But above all, beyond all there is a kind of fleeting
beauty on the faces of everybody, a timid look, the look of some-
one who bends over a new baby. This is so beautiful, that it fills
one with awe. The fat old taximan has it and the fisherman on
the Pont d' Alma that I passed yesterday and the young lady at
the office with her scent and her violet cachou and her shoes like
beetles all all are the same. For this alone one is thankful to
have lived on the earth. My canaries opposite are, of course, in a
perfect fever. They sing, flutter, sing and make love. Even the
old clock that strikes over the roofs says one two no longer, but
drowsily, gently says Spring Spring. . . .

Yes, paint the Luxembourg Gardens! Do paint a new tree, a
just-come-out chestnut wouldn't that be good to paint ? When
the leaves are still stiff they look as though they had sprung out of
the buds. Chestnut trees are marvellous. But so are limes and
acacias and umbrella pines. I can't say I like firs awfully, though.
If you had lived among them as we did in Switzerland you would
have found them stodgy.

To Mrs. Oliver Onions March 24, 7922

What a letter you have sent me! If I could hope one of my stories
had given you one moment of the happiness you have given me I
would feel less at a loss how to thank you. I have sat here, look-
ing at the pages, and thinking " So she felt like that about The
Stranger, she notices Florrie the cat, she understood my poor old
Ma Parker and Miss Brill. . . ."

For it's not your praise I value most (though, of course, one
does like praise) it's the fact that you have so beautifully, so gen-
erously seen what I was trying to express. It is a joy to write
stories but nothing like the joy of knowing one has not written
in vain. I have lived too remote from people for the last four
years seeing nobody except my husband for months on end
And that makes one a little bit frightened sometimes lest one has

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lost touch with life. But a letter like yours is such encouragement
that the only way I can thank you is by trying to write better. . . .
You say scarcely anything about the big black holes in my book
(like the servant's afternoon out). But I know they are there. I
must mend them next time.

How glad I am that you did not listen to the person who said
you had " much better not." One does not expect such letters
how could one few people are rich enough to be able to afford
to give such presents.

To the Countess Russell March 24, 7922

I have been on the point of writing to you for days. And now
merciful Powers ! it's winter again with real live snow and I've
not been out of this hotel once since I arrived in Paris eight weeks
ago except to go to the clinic and back. Oh to be on grass-feed
again after all this hay and dry food. I've read Michelet, Madame
d'Epinay and Remy de Gourmont (exasperating old stupid as
often as not) and I cling to Shakespeare. But even Shakespeare
. . . It's awful. However, the Russian promises that after this
week I really begin to mend, so I have no right to make moan.

But cities are the very devil, Elizabeth, if one is embalmed
in them. And here's this post card of the Chalet Soleil in summer
in all its ravishing loveliness, with two perfect guardian angels,
large, benign, frilly ones, in full leaf, behind it. I think they are
oaks. I cherish, embedded in Twelfth Night, a sprig of mignonette
from the bush that ran wild in its second generation by the front
door. And do you remember smelling the geraniums in the late
afternoon in the hall ? It seemed just the time and the place to
smell those geraniums. I can't even imagine what going back there
would be like; it would be too great happiness. But I shall re-
member that day for ever.

To Richard Murry March 29, 7922

Yes, I too was very interested in S.'s review, though I didn't
agree with it all. For instance his quotation from Tolstoy, " There
are no heroes, only people." I believe there are heroes. And after
all it was Tolstoy who made the remark who was surely a

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large part of a hero himself. And I don't believe in the limitations
of man; I believe in " the heights." I can't help it; I'm forced to.
It seems to me that very feeling of inevitability that there is in a
great work of art is a proof a profession of faith on the part
of the artist that this life is not all. (Of course, I'm not talking
of personal immortality as we were taught to imagine it.) If I were
to agree with S. I'd have to believe that the mind is supreme. But
I don't not by a long long chalk. The mind is only the fine instru-
ment, it's only the slave of the soul. I do agree that with a great
many artists one never sees the master, we only know the slave.
And the slave is so brilliant that he can almost make you forget
the absence of the other. But one is only really living when one
acknowledges both or so it seems to me and great art is
achieved when the relation between these two is perfected. But
it's all very difficult.

About religion. Did you mean the " study of life " or Christ's
religion, " Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden
and I will give you rest" ?The queer thing is one does not seem
to contradict the other one follows on the other to me. If I lose
myself in the study of life and give up self then I am at rest. But
the more I study the religion of Christ the more I marvel at it.
It seems almost impertinent to say that. But you understand. . . .

I wish you read German. Goethe's Conversations with Ecker-
mann is one of those books which become part of one's life and
what's more, enrich one's life for ever. Our edition is in two
volumes. We lie in bed each reading one it would make a
funny drawing.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett Tuesday

April 4, 7922

I'm interested in what you say of Wyndham L. I've heard so
very much about him from Anne Rice and Violet Schiff. Yes, I ad-
mire his line tremendously. It's beautifully obedient to his wishes.
But it's queer I feel that as an artist in spite of his passions and his
views and all that he lacks a real centre. I'll tell you what I mean.
It sounds personal but we can't help that, we can only speak of
what we have learnt. It seems to me that what one aims at is to
work with one's mind and one's soul together. By soul I mean

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that "thing" that makes the mind really important. I always
picture it like this. My mind is a very complicated, capable instru-
ment. But the interior is dark. It can work in the dark and throw
off all kinds of things. But behind that instrument like a very
steady gentle light is the soul. And it's only when the soul ir-
radiates the mind that what one does matters. . . . What I aim
at is that state of mind when I feel my soul and my mind are one.
It's awfully, terribly difficult to get at. Only solitude will do it for
me. But I feel Wyndham Lewis would be inclined to call the soul
tiddley-om-pom. It's a mystery, anyway. One aims at perfection
knows one will never achieve it and goes on aiming as though
one knew the exact contrary.

By the way, do you know Marquet's work well ? I have a book
of reproductions I will show you. He's not a very great painter
but he's most awfully good sometimes. What a bore ! As I write
about him he suddenly seems very small beer. And the repro-
duction of a picture by le Nain (in the Louvre), Re pas de Pay sans,
which is four-pinned on my wall is miles better than all Mar-
quet's kind of thing.

Saturday
April 9, 1922

Are you coming on the i8th? I went out to-day, Miss, and
bought myself a sweet-pretty-hat-it-was-indeed, and walked away
in it carrying my dead one in a paper bag. Which is to say:

That this reaction seems to be nearly over. I do feel much bet-
ter. Manoukhin is very pleased was yesterday.

Oh, Brett, I can't say what it's like! I still don't dare to give my-
self up to believing all is going to be quite well. But all the
same. . . .

The following letter needs a note of explanation. The part in italics was
written by J. M. Murry. It was, in fact, the beginning of an ordinary
polite social letter to the wife of a French friend. He left it unfinished on
his writing table and went out. When he returned he found it completed
for him.

460

Letters 7922

Victoria-Palace Hotel
rue Blaise-Desgoffe,
Paris 6me
le ii avril 7922

Chere Madame,

Je vous remercie de votre lettre. Je regrette beaucoup de ne pas
avoir eu le plaisir de voir V. ; mais j'espere que je serai encore a
Paris quand il revient du Midi, et quil sera tout a fait retabli par
le beau soleiL J'ai un si bon souvenir de ma soiree chez vous,
Madame, que 1'idee meme (Tune autre me donne un rouge vif
aux genoux. Vous souvenez-vous du moment quand vous avez
verse sur mon pantalon gris-perle la petite tasse de chocolat et ma
reponse en vous frappant (fa$on anglais) avec ma porte-plume ?
" Helas mon passe ! Ou est-il passe ? " comme disait votre soidisant
mari.

Aver un de mes fameux baisers sur la joue,
Croyez-moi chere Madame,

Votre Boule-Dogue le plus fidele,

John Middleton Murry.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett Easter

April 77, 7922

Brett, how ever dare you breathe the idea of scrubbing. If you
ever take a scrub brush in your hand I hope it will sting you and
run after you like a beetle. Don't work any more than you can
possibly help! It's cheaper for you to employ slaves for those jobs.
I hope your servant is a good creature and will really look after
you. I wish I knew more about your house and its fixings but it's
tiring to write such things. You'll tell me when you come over.
I'm sure we shall be in Paris until the middle of June, for once
Manoukhin is over, I must get my teeth seen to before we go off
again. Then we think of making for Austria or Bavaria and per-
haps our old love, Bandol for the winter. That's what we want to
do. I foresee I shall have to pick up a young maid in Bavaria. I
can't do without somebody, not a Mountain, but a maid. Who
takes one's gloves to be cleaned. Looks after one's clothes, keeps
them brushed and so on. And then there's one's hair and all that.

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It takes such a terrific time to keep everything going. There is an
endless succession of small jobs. And then one wants little things
bought, new sachets and toothpaste. All those things to keep re-
newed. I can't keep up with it, not if I was as strong as ever.
There's too much to write and too much to read and to talk
about. I can't for the life of me understand how women manage.
It's easier for men because of the way they dress and so on. Also
they aren't dependent on small things like we are. No, a little nice
Bertha or Augusta is my ambition.

By the way, I have discovered something interesting about the
Russian colony in Paris. I mean Manoukhin and his friends. They
are intensely religious. Before the revolution they were all scep-
tics, as far from religion as the English intelligentsia. But now that
is changed. They go to Church perpetually, kneel on the cold
stones, believe really in religion. This is very strange. Last Good
Friday at the clinic Manoukhin was late and his partner, Donat,
a handsome white-bearded man with a stiff leg, talked to us about
it. They have become mystics, said he. Mystic ! that strange word
is always touching the fringes of and running away from . . .

Forgive this letter. All is scraps and pieces. I am shamefully tired
and only fit for business communications. I try to whip myself up
but it's no good. I've a new story coming out in the Nation called
Honeymoon. Read it if you have the time, will you? I'd like to
feel you had seen it.

To the Countess Russell April 26, 7922

I feel I have spent years and years at this hotel. I have eaten
hundreds of wings of hotel chickens, and only God knows how
many little gritty trays with half cold coffee pots on them have
whisked into my room and out again. It doesn't matter. Really,
one arrives at a rather blissful state of defiance after a time, when
nothing matters and one almost seems to glory in everything.
It rains every day. The hotel window sills have sprouted into very
fat self-satisfied daisies and pitiful pansies. Extraordinary China-
men flit past one on the stairs followed by porters bearing their
boxes, which are like large corks; the lift groans for ever. But it's
all wonderful all works of the Lord and marvellous in His
sight. John and I went for a drive in the Bois the other day. Eliza-

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beth, it was divine. That new green, that grass; and there were
cherry trees in flower masses of adorable things.

Are you working? I won't ask you what you are reading. Do
you sometimes get tired of books but terribly tired of them ?
Away with them all! It being a cold night, lately, John and I lay
in one bed each with an immense Tomb of Eckermann's Conver-
sations with Goethe perched on our several chests. And when my
side of the bed began to shake up and down

/. : " What in God's name are you laughing at ? "

K. : " Goethe is so very, very funny! "

But it hadn't " struck " John.

To Anne Estelle Rice May i, 7922

I have just been through that dechirante experience, two lovely
young creatures from the chemisier with little frocks " pour es-
sayer seule-ment, Madame." I'm sitting, fringe straight again at
last, writing to you in the one they forced on me a kind of plum
grey tout droit, with buttings on the hips and no trimmings at
all except a large embroidered lobster bien pose sur la ventre!!!
Shall I ever wear it again ? It's beginning to look extraordinary
every moment. The little creatures twittering Chic-ehic-chic!
would have made me buy a casserole for a chapeau with two
poireaux in the front. That is the worst of living as I do far from
the female kind. These moments come and I'm lost.

Yes, I'll be here first week in June for sure. Do come then.
Otherwise I don't know where I shall be off to. I've got a wander-
ing fit on. Anywhere, anywhere but England. The idea would be
to have a small permanent nid in Paris and another in the South
and then a small car and so on, ma chore. Very nice only one
thing missing to make it complete. However, I never care much
about money. I always feel sooner or later it will turn up one
will find it somewhere, in the crown of one's hat or in the jampot.

If only it would stop raining large spots of rain as big as
mushrooms fall every day Paris would be perfect just now. I
don't see much of it for I have still two weeks of my X-ray " cure "
to go. But after that I shall really begin to prowl. I can't say much
about the cure till it's over. I dare not. But I feel very different
already. I'm so sorry to hear of your servant debacle. If I go to

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Germany this summer (we've almost settled to go) I mean to
find a good sober German and keep her attached to me for ever.
Shall I look out one for you? Germans are the ideal servants, I
think, and they are so lasting. They don't ladder at once like the
English kind. I want to get a very nice one with a pincushion in
the shape of a strawberry pinned on her buste and she will catch
my ribbons when they run out of my chemises and run them
in again and be a comfort. That's what one really wants. A Com-
fort. They ought to be bred specially.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett Saturday

May i, 7922

About Joyce Don't read it unless you are going to really worry
about it. It's no joke. It's fearfully difficult and obscure and one
needs to have a really vivid memory of the Odyssey and of Eng-
lish Literature to make it out at all. It is wheels within wheels
within wheels. Joyce certainly had not one grain of a desire that
one should read it for the sake of the coarseness, though I confess
I find many " a ripple of laughter " in it. But that's because (al-
though I don't approve of what he's done) I do think Marian
Bloom and Bloom are superbly seen at times. Marian is the com-
plete complete female. There's no denying it. But one has to re-
member she's also Penelope, she is also the night and the day,
she is also an image of the teeming earth, full of seed, rolling round
and round. And so on and so on. I am very surprised to hear a
Russian has written a book like this. It's most queer that it's never
been heard of. But has Kot read Ulysses ? It's not the faintest use
considering the coarseness except purely critically.

I am very interested that Koteliansky thinks the German-
Russian treaty really good. Manoukhin and all the Russians here
say it means war in the near future. For certain, for certain! It is
the beginning of Bolshevism all over Europe. The Bolsheviks at
Genoa are complete cynics. They say anything. They are abso-
lutely laughing in their beards at the whole affair, and treating
us as fools even greater than the French. The French at least
have a sniff of what may happen but we go on saying " Let us all
be good," and the Russians and Germans burst with malicious
glee. I was staggered when I heard this. Manoukhin's partner

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here, a very exceptional Frenchman, started the subject yesterday,
said, Why did not we English immediately join the French and
take all vestige of power from Germany ? This so disgusted me I
turned to Manoukhin and felt sure he would agree that it simply
could not be done. But he agreed absolutely. And they declare,
the Russians here, we are in for another war and for Bolshevism
partout. It's a nice prospect, isn't it ?

I must say I never in my life felt so entangled in politics as I do
at this moment. I hang on the newspapers. I feel I dare not miss
a speech. One begins to feel, like Gorky feels, that it's one's duty
to what remains of civilisation to care for those things and that
writers who do not are traitors. But it's horrible. It's like jumping
into a treacle pot. However, perhaps to-morrow one will stop
reading the papers or caring a fig.

ABC

Tumble down D

The cat's in the cupboard

And can't see me.

I must end this letter. Don't take it for a real letter. It's written
from bed where I lie with influenza for tumpany. I am sure I'm
over the worst of it to-day. But I still feel very boiled and put
through the wringer. You see the weather here is simply beyond
words. It rains and rains and it's cold and it hails and the wind
whistles down the corridors. Only frogs and mushrooms, being
noseless, could refrain from catching things. Influenza puts the
fear of God into me. The very word has a black plume on its head
and a tail of coffin sawdust. But I hope to get up and go out next
week. Don't think I'm discouraged. Not a bit of it. On the con-
trary, if a pudding head could sing, I would.

M. comes in every afternoon with a fresh victim to tell me of.
Everybody has got it, woman at milkshop, woman at library, bread
woman. Where does all the rain come from ? And the Channel is
rough every day. When you come in May if I were you I'd fly. So
simple, no horrid old changing from boats to trains and diving
into cabins and along gritty station platforms. Flying seems so
clean, like cutting out one's way with a pair of sharp scissors.

465

Letters 1922

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett May 3, 1922

It's rather an important day for me. I am beginning my long
serial . . . half of which has to be finished in a month from now.
And I have also signed away all the rest of my book to be ready
sans faute by the end of the summer. The serial is very exciting.
It is 24,000 words, a short novel in fact. I want it to end with a
simply scrumptious wedding, rose pink tulle frocks for the brides-
maids, favours on the horses' heads, that marvellous moment at
the church when everyone is waiting, the servants in a pew to
themselves. The Cook's hat! But all, all divinely beautiful if I can
do it ... gay, but with that feeling that " beauty vanishes beauty
passes, Though rare, rare it be. . . ."

To Hugh Jones May 5, 7922

My dear little Hugh,

First I must beg your pardon for not having thanked you for
that lovely post card you painted for me. But I wanted to run out
and buy you a little present to pop in the letter and I have not
been able to yet, for I have been ill, too. But I won't forget. The
very first time I go out I will drive to a shop that sells presents.

How very nicely you painted that bee-hive. I have always wanted
to live in a bee-hive, so long as the bees were not there. With a
little window and a chimney it would make a dear little house.
I once read a story about a little girl who lived in one with her
Grandma, and her Grandma's name was old Mrs. Gooseberry.
What a funny name!

Mr. Murry thinks you write very well. He liked the " R " best.
He said it looked as if it was going for a walk. Which letter do
you like making best ? " Q " is nice because of its curly tail.

I have pinned the post card on the wall so that everybody can
see it. I hope you are nearly well again.

With much love from

"Mrs. Murry."

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Letters 1922

To Richard Murry Sunday. Paree.

May 23, 7922

But seriously isn't it almost frightening the difference fine
weather can make ? I wish Einstein could find some way of shoot-
ing a giant safety-pin at the sun and keeping it there. It has been
tremendously hot in Paris. Like an oven. Jack and I gave up writ-
ing altogether. We were overcome and could do nothing but fan
ourselves, he with a volume of Anthony Trollope (very cool) and
me with my black penny paper one. The strawberries and cherries
came out in swarms very big cherries and little wild strawbugs.
Finally we found a spot in the Louvre among the sculpture which
was cool as a grotto. Jack had an idea of making himself a neat
toga, taking the Nation for a parchment roll and standing be-
calmed upon a Roman pedestal until the weather changed. There
are glorious things in that first room in the Louvre. Greek statues
portions of the Parthenon Frieze, a head of Alexander, won-
derful draped female figures. Greek drapery is very strange. One
looks at it the lines seem to be dead straight and yet there is
movement a kind of suppleness and though there is no sug-
gestion of the body beneath one is conscious of it as a living, breath-
ing thing. How on earth is that done ? And they seemed to have
been able to draw a line with a chisel as if it were a pencil. One
line and there is an arm or a nose perfect. The Romans are
deaders compared to them. We had a long stare at the Venus de
Milo, too. One can't get away from the fact she is marvellously
beautiful. All the little people in straw hats buzz softly round
her. Such a comfort to see something they know. " Our Maud
has ever such a fine photograph of her over the piano." But " she
doesn't care."

About Rubens. I never can forget his paintings in Antwerp.
They seemed to me far more brilliant than the London ones I
mean impressive. He must have enjoyed himself no end a do-
ing of them. But I confess I like his small paintings best. One gets
really too much for one's money in the big ones There's rather
a fat woman wading in a stream in the National Gallery Quite
a small one. It's very good isn't it ?

I shall have no time to look at pictures here till we get back
from Switzerland. It's terrible how Jack and I seem to get

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engaged. We are pursued by dinners and lunches and telephone
bells and dentists. Oh, Richard, do you FEAR the dentist ? He re-
duces me to a real worm. Once I am established in that green plush
chair with my heels higher almost than my head all else fades.
What a fiendish business it is ! One day I shall write a story that you
will have to tie up your face to read. I shall call it Killing the Nerve.
Since I last wrote to you a great deal seems to have happened.
But that is the effect of living in a city. I long to get away and to
work. We are spending June and July at a hotel about 750 feet
below Montana. It is a very simple place and isolated, standing
in one of those forest clearings. There are big grassy slopes almost
like lawns between the clumps of trees and by the time we get
there the flowers will all be out as they were last year. Paris is a fine
city but one can't get hold of any big piece of work here; the
day splits up into pieces and people play the piano below one's
window or sing even if one sits with the door locked and the out-
side world put away.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett Hotel d'Angleterre

Montana-sur-Sierre
Valais, Suisse
June 5, 7922

We had an awful journey. The station was crammed with a
seething mob. No porters people carrying their luggage. No
couchettes after all only a packed ist-class carriage, coated in
grime. It was Whitsun, of course. . . . I've never taken Whitsun
seriously before, but now I know better. Poor dear M. left things
in the rack, gave a 500 note instead of a 50, lost the registered lug-
gage tickets. . . . When we reached Sierre, and that lovely clean
hotel, smelling of roses and lime blossom, we both fell fast asleep
on a garden bench while waiting for lunch. Then at Randogne,
after shinning up a hill to reach the little cart, a big black cloud
saw us far off, tore across and we'd scarcely started when down
came the cold mountain rain. Big drops that clashed on one like
pennies. It poured in sheets and torrents. We hadn't even a rug.
The road, which has only just been dug out and is like a river-bed,
became a river, and for the most of the time we seemed to drive
on two wheels. But it was heavenly, it didn't matter. It was so

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marvellously fresh and cool after Paris. A huge dog plunged after
our cart and leapt into all the streams a dog as big as a big sofa.
Its name was Lulu. When we arrived, sleek as cats with the wet,
a little old grey woman ran out to meet us. There wasn't another
soul to be seen. All was empty, chill and strange. She took us into
two very plain bare rooms, smelling of pitch pine, with big
bunches of wild flowers on the tables, with no mirrors, little wash-
basins like tea basins, no armchairs, no nuffin. And she explained
she had no servant even. There was only herself and her old sister
who would look after us. I had such fever, by this time, that it all
seemed like a dream. When the old 'un had gone J. looked very
sad. Oh, how I pitied him! I saw he had the awful foreboding
that we must move on again. But I had the feeling that perhaps
we had been living too softly lately. It was perhaps time to shed
all those hot-water taps and horrid false luxuries. So I said it re-
minded me of the kind of place Tchekhov would stay at in the
country in Russia! This comforted M. so much that the very walls
seemed to expand. And after we had ##packed and eaten eggs
from the hen, not the shop, M. got into a pair of old canvas shoes
and a cricket-shirt.

The air is so wonderful. It's not really hot here except in the
sun: There just a breeze a freshet that blows from across the
valley. It's all silky and springlike. The grasshoppers ring their
little tambourines all day and all night, too. The view is so mar-
vellous that you must see it to believe it. And behind this hotel
that are immense lawns dotted with trees; it's like a huge, natural
park. We sat there yesterday watching the herds a few bright
sheep, an old woman with her goat, a young girl, far away with
some black ones. When the beasts were being driven home at
milking time they began to play. I have never seen a more beauti-
ful sight. They are so joyful to be out again and in the green field
that great cows lowed softly for delight and skipped and jumped
and tilted at each other and little sheep flew along like rocking
horses and danced and gambolled. The slender girls with mush-
room white handkerchiefs on their heads ran after them. But
they caught the infection and began to laugh and sing, too. It was
like the beginning of the world again.

Cities are cursed places. When I have my little house in the
South. I'll never go near them and I shall lure you away. I long

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for you to be here next month. The hotel will still be empty. But
that's nice. It is so still. As one crosses the hall it echoes. The old
woman has very kind eyes. She is simple and gentle. She keeps
promising me that I will get better here, and she is determined
to make me drink all kinds of teas made of fresh strawberry
leaves and hay and pine needles. I suppose I shall drink them
Bless her heart!

Sunday
June 9, 7922

Summer has deserted us, too. It's cool and we are up in the
clouds all day. Huge white woolly fellows lie in the valley. There is
nothing to be seen from the windows but a thick, soft whiteness.
It's beautiful in its way. The sound of water is beautiful flowing
through it and the shake of the cows' bells.

Yes, I know Utrillo's work from reproductions; M. has seen it.
It's very sensitive and delicate. I'd like to see some originals. What
a horrible fate he should be mad. Tragedy treads on the heels
of those young French painters. Look at young Modigliani he
had only just begun to find himself when he committed suicide.
I think it's partly that cafe life; it's a curse as well as a blessing. I
sat opposite a youthful poet in the filthy atmosphere of the L'Uni-
vers and he was hawking and spitting the whole evening. Finally
after a glance at his mouchoir he said, " Encore du sang. II me faut
24 mouchoirs par jour. C'est le desespoir de ma femme! " Another
young poet, Jean Pellerin, (awfully good) died, (but not during
the evening!) making much the same joke.

Talking about " illness," my dear. I feel rather grim when I
read of your wish to hustle me and make me run! Did it really
seem to you people were always telling me to sit down ? To me
that was the fiercest running and the most tremendous hustling
and I couldn't keep it up for any length of time. In fact, as soon as
I got here I wrote to L. M. and asked her to come back and look
after things as otherwise I'd never be able to get any work done.
All my energy went in " hustling." So she's coming back to me in
a strictly professional capacity to look after us both. M. needs
someone very badly, too, and I can't face the thought of a stranger.
No, I'm afraid it's not only a question of weak muscles; I wish
it were! You ask Manouhkin! Don't let's discuss my health.

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I must get up and start work. There's a huge beetle creeping
over my floor so cautiously, so intently. He has thought it all
out. One gets fond of insects here; they seem to be in their place
and it's a pleasure to know they are there. M. was saying the other
night how necessary snakes are in creation. Without snakes there
would be a tremendous gap, a poverty. Snakes complete the pic-
ture. Why ? I wonder. I feel it, too. I read an account of unpacking
large deadly poisonous vipers at the Zoo the other day. They were
lifted out of the boxes with large wooden tongs. Can't you see
those tongs! like giant asparagus tongs. And think of one's feel-
ings if they suddenly crossed like sugar tongs too Brrrr!

Sunday
June 9, 7922

The weather is / ^perfect to be very polite to it. It's warm, and
then it's chill. Not so much windy as draughty. But where is per-
fect weather? Palm Beach, California, they say. But if I arrived,
there'd be a snow-storm. L. M. arrived yesterday. The relief to have
her is so great that I'll never never say another word of impatience.
I don't deserve such a wife. All is in order already. M. and I sigh
and turn up our eyes. M., in fact, to pay her a little compliment,
has wrenched the ligaments of his foot and can't walk. He is tied
to a chaise longue! Isn't it awful bad luck? But what marvellously
good luck that L. M. was here and produced bandages and vinegar
and all that was needful. The Ancient Sisters, of course, hovered
over him, too, and made him cover his foot in a poultice of parsley
last night. He went to bed looking like a young leg of lamb.

I wish you had been here this afternoon. They brought us in
branches of cherries, all dark and glistening among the long
slender leaves.

To William Gerhardi June 14, 7922

Your handwriting on the envelope made me feel a guilty thing;
I hardly dared open the letter. And when I did there wasn't a
single reproach in it. That was very kind of you very generous.

The truth is I have been on the pen point of writing to you for
weeks and weeks but always Paris horrid Paris snatched my

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pen away. And during the latter part of the time I spent nearly
every afternoon in a tight, bony dentist's chair while a dreadfully
callous American gentleman with an electric light on his fore-
head explored the root canals or angled with devilish patience for
the lurking nerves. Sometimes, at black moments, I think that
when I die I shall go to the DENTIST'S.

I am glad you did not come to Paris after all; we should not
have been able to talk. It's too distracting. It is like your " twelve
complete teas, ices and all " all the time. One is either eating
them or watching other people eat them, or seeing them swept
away or hearing the jingle of their approach, or waiting for them,
or paying for them, or trying to get out of them (hardest of all).
Here it is ever so much better. If, on your walk to-day, you pass one
of those signs with a blameless hand pointing to the Hotel d'Ang-
leterre, please follow. The cherries are just ripe; they are cutting
the hay. But these are English delights, too. Our speciality is the
forest a deux pas, threaded with little green paths and hoarse
quick little streams. If it happens to be sunset, too, I could shew
you something very strange. Behind this Hotel there is a big
natural lawn, a wide stretch of green turf. When the herds that
are being driven home in the evening come to it they go wild with
delight. Staid, black cows begin to dance, to leap, to cut capers.
Quiet, refined little sheep who look as though buttercups would
not melt in their mouths suddenly begin to jump, to spin round,
to bound off like rocking-horses. The goats are complete Russian
Ballet Dancers; they are almost too brilliant. But the cows are
the most surprising and the most naive. You will admit that cows
don't look like born dancers, do they ? And yet my cows are light
as feathers, bubbling over with fun. Please tell dear little Miss
Helsingfors that it's quite true they do jump over the moon. I
have seen them do it or very nearly. Ah, Mr. Gerhardi, I love
the country ! To lie on the grass again and smell the clover ! Even
to feel a little ant creep up one's sleeve was a kind of comfort . . .
after one had shaken it down again. . . .

I am in the middle of a very long story * written in the same
style horrible expression! as The Daughters of the Late Colo-
nel. I enjoy writing it so much that even after I am asleep, I go on.
The scene is the South of France in early spring. There is a real

1 The Doves' Nest.

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love story in it, too, and rain, buds, frogs, a thunderstorm, pink
spotted Chinese dragons. There is no happiness greater than this
leading a double life. But it's mysterious, too. How is it possible
to be here in this remote, deserted hotel and at the same time to
be leaning out of the window of the Villa Martin listening to the
rain thrumming so gently on the leaves and smelling the night-
scented stocks with Milly ? (I shall be awfully disappointed if you
don't like Milly.)

Have you read Bunin's stories ? They are published in English
by the Hogarth Press. The Gentleman from San Francisco is good,
but I don't care much for the others. He tries too hard. He's too
determined you shall not miss the cucumbers and the dyed whisk-
ers. And the last story called Son I can't for the life of me under-
stand. I met Bunin in Paris and because he had known Tchekhov
I wanted to talk of him. But alas ! Bunin said " Tchekhov ? Ah
Ah Oui, j'ai connu Tchekhov. Mais il y a longtemps, long-
temps." And then a pause. And then, graciously, " II a ecrit des
belles choses." And that was the end of Tchekhov. " Vous avez lu
mon dernier. ... ? "

I shall be here until the end of August. After that I go back to
Paris for two months and then I want to go to Italy to a little
place called Arco near the Lake of Garda for the winter.

When you are in the mood please write to me and tell me what
you are writing. I am sorry you did not like The Fly and glad
you told me. I hated writing it. Yes, I remember the story about
the little boy and the buzzing insects. His father comes home from
the town and finds him sitting up to the table cutting Kings and
Queens out of a pack of playing cards. I can always see him.

Here comes my ancient landlady with a cup of tea made from
Iceland moss and hay flowers. She is determined to make a new
man of me good old soul and equally convinced that nothing
but herb tea will do it. My insides must be in a state of the most
profound astonishment.

Goodbye for now. All success every good wish for your book.

And don't be grateful to me, please; I've done nothing.

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To the Hon. Dorothy Brett June 22, 7922

In the Forest

I'm sitting writing to you in a glade under a pine tree. There
are quantities of little squat yellow bushes of a kind of broom
everywhere that give a sweet scent and are the humming houses
of bees. M. and I have been here all day. Now he is climbing up to
Montana to buy a large bottle of castor oil! It's sad to feel so com-
pletely a creature of air as one does in this forest and yet to find
one's insides have ordered a general strike. Such is our awful
condition. It's divinely lovely out here, and warm again with
just a light breeze singing in the trees. A little blue sky with puffs
of white cloud over the mountains.

Last evening as I sat on a stump watching the herds pass I felt
you may take furiously to cows and paint nothing but cows on
green lawns with long shadows like triangles from this-shaped
tree fa drawing] and end with a very grave cow-complex. I have
one. Up till now I have always more than resisted the charm of
cows but now it's swep' over me all of a heap, Miss. Insects, too,
even though my legs are both bitten off at the knees by large and
solemn flies. Do you mind turning brown, too ? Or peeling ? I had
better warn you. These things are bound to happen. And I am
hatefully unsociable. Don't forget that. It's on the cards you may
turn frightfully against me here and brain me with your Toby. 1
You see, every day I work till 12.30 and again from 4.30 until sup-
per every blessed day, Sunday included. Can you bear that?
In the mornings we may meet as I go abroad and sit under the
trees. But I shall regard you as invisible and you will haughtily
cut me. In this way, when we are free, we feel free and not guilty.
We can play and look at beetles in peace. I must get the ancient
sisters to simplify their ideas of picnics though. To-day they
brought M. boiled beef and trimmings in a saucepan. It's awful
to open such a vessel under the very Eye of our Maker. I like eggs,
butter-bread and milk at picnics. But M. disagrees. He regards such
tastes as female flippancy.

Oh, my story won't go fast enough. It's got stuck. I must have
it finished and done with in 10 days' time. Never shall I commit
myself again to a stated time. It's hellish.

1 The name of an ear-trumpet.

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To Arnold Gibbons June 24, 7922

Very many thanks for your letter and for letting me see the five
stories. I'd like immensely to talk about them a little. But you'll
take what I say as workshop talk will you ? as from one
writer to another. Otherwise one feels embarrassed.

I think the idea in all the five stories is awfully good. And you
start each story at just the right moment and finish it at the right
moment, too. Each is a whole, complete in itself. But I don't feel
any of them quite come off. Why ? It's as though you used more
words than were necessary. There's a kind of diffuseness of ex-
pression which isn't natural to the English way of thinking. I
imagine your great admiration for Tchekhov has liberated you,
but you have absorbed more of him than you are aware of and he's
got in the way of your individual expression for the time being.
It's very queer; passages real like a translation! It's as though you
were in his shadow and the result is you are a little bit blurred,
a bit vague. Your real inmost self (forgive the big words but one
does mean them) doesn't seem to be speaking except occasionally.
It's almost as though you were hiding and hadn't the shall I call
it courage ? of your own fine sensitiveness. When you do get
free of Tchekhov plus all you have learnt of him you ought to
write awfully good stories. Pleasure gives one an idea of how good.
There you seem to me nearly in your own stride. It is convincing.
One believes in that little cat and its meat for breakfast; one sees
your old chap wiping the glass case with his handkerchief; and
one sees his audience turn and then turn back to him. I think this
story is much the best of the five.

To return to your Russianization for a moment. It seems to me
that when Russians think they go through a different process from
what we do. As far as we can gather they arrive at feeling by a
process of ... spiritual recapitulation. I don't think we do. What
I imagine is we have less words but they are more vital; we need
less. So though one can accept this recapitulating process from Rus-
sian writers it sounds strange to me coming from your pen. For
instance, in Going Home you get in five lines: "enthusiasm,
doubtful, mistrust, acute terror, anxious joy, sadness, pain, final
dissolution, filth and degradation." Or (p. 2) " the unhappiness,
the misery and cruelty, all the squalor and abnormal spiritual

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anguish." Again, last page but one of The Sister, " futility, monot-
ony, suffocated, pettiness, sordidness, vulgar minuteness."

When one writes like that in English it's as though the nerve
of the feeling were gone. Do you know what I mean ?

I realise it's all very well to say these things but how are we
going to convey these overtones, half tones, quarter tones, these
hesitations, doubts, beginnings, if we go at them directly? It is
most devilishly difficult, but I do believe that there is a way of
doing it and that's by trying to get as near to the exact truth as
possible. It's the truth we are after, no less (which, by the way,
makes it so exciting).

To Sir Harold Beauchamp June 26, 1922

I hope you are enjoying a different hand of weather from our
mountain variety. It is as cold as late autumn, very, very damp,
with heavy mists. We are wearing full winter outfit and going to
bed under our travelling rugs, with large size Swiss hot water
tins. Summer seems to have spent its fortune at one fell swoop.
You know that type of wind, like a draught, which plays on the
back of one's neck and seems to come from all quarters equally;
it is in its element at present. However, being the month of June,
we can still hope that any day may see a complete change.

I envy you your voyage in the " Aquitania." It must be a most
interesting experience to travel in one of those huge liners very
different to the good old " Star of New Zealand." Still, I have a
very soft corner in my heart for the " Niwaru," for example. Do
you remember how Mother used to enjoy the triangular shaped
pieces of toast for tea ? Awfully good they were, too, on a cold after-
noon in the vicinity of The Horn. How I should love to make a long
sea voyage again one of these days. But I always connect such ex-
periences with a vision of Mother in her little seal skin jacket with
the collar turned up. I can see her as I write.

It is a great pity J. is so wicked about her food. If she lived
abroad for a time, she would realise that it is only in England
that very thin ladies are the fashion (as Grandma B. would have
said). I have grown foreign enough to confess that I infinitely pre-
fer the French taste in such matters. One sees beautiful women in

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Paris and all their beauty is crowned by their look of radiant
health; lovely arms and throats and shoulders not bony ones.
When I burst out of all my skirts in Paris the little dressmaker
who had to make 'em bigger rolled up her eyes and said, " Dieu
soit loue." That's a much better spirit than the English one.

To S. S. Koteliansfy Tuesday

Hotel Chateau Belle Vue
Sierre (Valais)
July 4, 7922

I want to write to you before I begin work. I have been thinking
of you ever since I woke up, thinking how much I should like to
talk to you. To-day for instance, is such an opportunity. Brett is
staying here for a week or so but she has gone up the mountains
for the day. And I am the only guest left in this big, empty- dim
hotel. It is awfully nice here, my dearest friend. It is full summer.
The grasshoppers ring their tiny tambourines, and down below
the gardener is raking the paths. Swallows are flying; two men
with scythes over their shoulders are wading through the field
opposite, lifting their knees as though they waded through a river.
But above all it is solitary.

I have been feeling lately a horrible feeling of indifference; a
very bad feeling. Neither hot nor cold; lukewarm, as the psalmist
says. It is better to be dead than to feel like that; in fact it is a kind
of death. And one is ashamed as a corpse would be ashamed, to be
unburied. I thought I would never write again. But now that I
have come here and am living alone all seems so full of meaning
again, and one longs only to be allowed to understand.

Have you read Lawrence's new book? I should like to very
much. He is the only writer living whom I really profoundly
care for. It seems to me whatever he writes, no matter how much
one may " disagree," is important. And after all even what one ob-
jects to is a sign of life in him. He is a living man. There has been
published lately an extremely bad collection of short stories
Georgian Short Stories. And The Shadow in the Rose Garden
by Lawrence is among them. This story is perhaps one of the
weakest he ever wrote. But it is so utterly different from all the

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rest that one reads it with joy. When he mentions gooseberries
these are real red, ripe gooseberries that the gardener is rolling on
a tray. When he bites into an apple it is a sharp, sweet, fresh apple
from the growing tree. Why has one this longing that people
shall be rooted in life ? Nearly all people swing in with the tide
and out with the tide again like a heavy seaweed. And they
seem to take a kind of pride in denying life. But why? I can-
not understand.

But writing letters is unsatisfactory. If you were here we would
talk or be silent, it would not matter which. We shall meet one
day, perhaps soon, perhaps some years must pass first. Who shall
say? To know you are there is enough. (This is not really con-
tradictory.)

To Sir Harold Eeauchamp July 9, 7922

I found mountain conditions plus cold, mist and rain too much
for me once more. And shifted to this small town, which is in the
valley. Here I shall stay until I return to Paris. J. has, however, re-
mained up aloft and only comes down for week-ends. This is an
excellent really first-rate hotel the pleasantest I have ever known.
It is simple but extremely comfortable and the food is almost too
good to be true. Sierre is only 1,700 feet high, which makes a great
difference to my heart, too. If one had no work to do it would
be a dull little place, for apart from the hotel there is nothing
much to be said for it. But another great point in its favour is
there is a farm attached, where the faithful old Swiss gardeners
allow me to explore. This is all complete with cows, turkeys,
poultry and a big rambling orchard that smells already of apples.
The damson trees are the first I remember seeing since those at
Karori. After all, a country life is hard to beat. It has more solid
joys than any other that I can imagine. I thank heaven and my
papa that I was not born a town child.

Yes, indeed, I too wish that I were taking a trip home with you.
It would be a marvellous experience. The very look of a " steamer
trunk" rouses the old war horse in me. I feel inclined to paw
the ground and smell the briny. But perhaps in ten year's time, if
I manage to keep above ground, I may be able to think seriously of
such a treat.

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^^*^+^^*e^'*>*^^'******^>^<+*^-~**~^^^-*r~^^~-^^~'~^*^^

I have just finished a story with a canary for the hero, and al-
most feel I have lived in a cage and pecked a piece of chickweed
myself. What a bother!

To William Gerhardi July 10, 1922

Many many thanks for your book. I am delighted to have it, and
I think it looks awfully nice. I've read it again from beginning to
end. How good it is! (Here, as you don't believe in such a thing
as modesty, you will say, " Yes, isn't it? ") But I can only agree.
Don't change, Mr. Gerhardi. Go on writing like that. I mean with
that freshness and warmth and suppleness, with that warm emo-
tional tone and not that dreadful glaze of " intellectuality " which
is like a curse upon so many English writers. . . . And there's
another thing. You sound so free in your writing. Perhaps that is
as important as anything. I don't know why so many of our poor
authors should be in chains, but there it is a dreadful clanking
sounds through their books, and they never can run away, never
take a leap, never risk anything. . . In fact, it's high time we took
up our pens and struck a blow for freedom. To begin with
What about * * * ? He is a ripe, fat victim. I agree with every
word you say about him, his smugness is unbearable, his " Oh my
friends, let us have Adventures ! " is simply the worst possible pre-
tence. You see the truth is he hasn't a word to say. It is a tremen-
dous adventure to him if the dog gets into the kitchen and licks
a saucepan. Perhaps it is the biggest adventure of all to breathe
" Good Night, dear Lady " as the daughter of the County hands
him his solid silver bedroom candlestick. All is sham, all is made
up, all is rooted in vanity. I am ashamed of going to the same
school with him but there you are. And he's Top Boy, with over
7,000 a year and America bowing to the earth to him. . . . It's
very painful.

But after this long parenthesis let me come back to Futility one
moment. Shall I tell you what I think you may have to guard
against? You have a very keen, very delightful sense of humour.
Just on one or two occasions (par example when you took Nina
into a corner and slapped her hand to the amusement of the
others) I think you give it too full a rein. I wonder if you feel

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what I mean ? To me, that remark trembles towards ... a kind
of smartness a something too easy to be worth doing.

I hope one day we shall have a talk about this book. Let me
once more wish it and you every possible success.

Now for your photograph. It is kind of you to have sent it to
me. I am very happy to have it. When I possess a room with a
mantlepiece again on the mantlepiece you will stand. Judging
by it you look as though you were very musical. Are you ?

I am extremely interested to hear of your book on Tchekhov. It's
just the moment for a book on Tchekhov. I have read, these last
weeks, Friday Nights, by Edward Garnett, which contains a long
essay on him. Garnett seems greatly impressed by the importance
of T.'s scientific training as a doctor, not the /^direct importance
(I could understand that) but the direct. He quotes as a proof
The Party and T.'s letter in which he says " the ladies say I am
quite right in all my symptoms when I describe the confinement."
But in spite of T.'s letter, that story didn't need a doctor to write it.
There's not a thing any sensitive writer could not have discovered
without a medical degree. The truth of that " importance " is far
more subtle. People on the whole understand Tchekhov very little.
They persist in looking at him from a certain angle and he's a
man that won't stand that kind of gaze. One must get round
him see him, feel him as a whole. By the way, isn't Tolstoy's
little essay on The Darling a small masterpiece of stupidity ?

. . . And when you say you don't think T. was really modest.
Isn't it perhaps that he always felt, very sincerely, that he could
have done so much more than he did ? He was tormented by time,
and by the desire to live as well as to write. " Life is given us but
once.". . . Yet, when he was not working he had a feeling of
guilt; he felt he ought to be. And I think he very often had that
feeling a singer has who has sung once and would give almost
anything for the chance to sing the same song over again Now
he could sing it. ... But the chance doesn't return. I suppose all
writers, little and big, feel this, but T. more than most. But I
must not write about him, I could go on and on. ...

Yes, the title of your novel is lovely, and from the practical
standpoint excellent. I see so many pretty little hands stretched
towards the library shelf. . . . About Love. I don't see how any
body could avoid buying a copy. But tres serieusement, I am so

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glad you are at work on it. Do you intend to " adopt a literary
career " as they say ? Or do you have to make literature your
mistress ? I hope Bolton is not a permanent address if you dislike
it so. I was there seventeen years ago. I remember eating a cake
with pink icing while a dark intense lady told me of her love
for Haydn Coffin and that she had thirteen photographs of him in
silver frames in her bedroom. I was very impressed, but perhaps it
wasn't a typical incident. I meant to tell you of the lovely place
where I am staying but this letter is too long. The flowers are
wonderful just now. Don't you love these real summer flowers?
You should see the dahlias here, big spiky fellows, with buds like
wax and round white ones and real saffron yellow. The women are
working in the vines. It's hot and fine with a light valley wind.
Goodbye. I am so glad we are friends.

To Arnold Gibbons July 13, 7922

I am appalled that I expressed myself so clumsily as to make it
possible for you to use the word " plagiarism." I beg you to forgive
me; it was far from my meaning. It was absorbed I meant. Per-
haps you will agree that we all, as writers, to a certain extent, ab-
sorb each other when we love. (I am presuming that you love
Tchekhov.) Anatole France would say we eat each other, but per-
haps nourish is the better word. For instance, Tchekhov's talent
was nourished by Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyitch. It is very pos-
sible he never would have written as he did if he had not read that
story. There is a deep division between the work he did before
he read it and after. . . . All I felt about your stories was that you
had not yet made the " gift " you had received from Tchekhov
your own. You had not yet, finally, made free with it and turned
it to your own account. My dear colleague, I reproach myself for
not having made this plainer. . . .

I'd like, if I may, to discuss the other point in your letter. Let
me see if I understand you. You mean you can only " care " for
such things as the little cat, the old man, the note of a bird, in the
period of reaction against your belief in pain and a life of sacrifice
and yourself. But as your belief is all-important to you that period
of reaction means little. Am I right ? Therefore the last of the five
stories was the only one you really cared about for there you

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express your very self. ... I mean you are writing with real con-
viction. Do you know what I feel? To do this successfully you
will have to do it more /^directly, you will have to leave the stu-
dent out. Now there is a moment in that story where you succeed.
It's where the little girl's throat works she weeps she wants
the apple and is afraid she is not going to have it. (Always re-
member this is just my personal feeling.) Your student argues,
explains too much. He ought perhaps to have said not a single
word.

But I hope you will go on writing. The important thing is to
write to find yourself in losing yourself. (There is no truth pro-
founder.) I do not know myself whether this world being what
it is pain is not absolutely necessary. I do not see how we are
to come by knowledge and love except through pain. That sounds
too definite, expressed so baldly if one were talking one would
make reservations. . . . Believe in pain I must.

To S. S. Kotdians\y July ij, 7922

I want to talk to you for hours about Aaron s Rod, for in-
stance. Have you read it? There are certain things in this new
book of L.'s that I do not like. But they are not important or
really part of it. They are trivial, encrusted, they cling to it as
snails to the underside of a leaf. But apart from them there is the
leaf, is the tree, firmly planted, deep thrusting, outspreading, grow-
ing grandly, alive in every twig. It is a living book; it is warm,
it breathes. And it is written by a living man, with conviction.
Oh, Koteliansky, what a relief it is to turn away from these little
pre-digested books written by authors who have nothing to say!
It is like walking by the sea at high tide eating a crust of bread
and looking over the water. I am so sick of all this modern seek-
ing which ends in seeking. See\ by all means, but the text goes on
" and ye shall find." And although, of course, there can be no
ultimate finding, there is a kind of finding by the way which is
enough, is sufficient. But these seekers in the looking glass, these
half-female, frightened writers-of -to-day You know, they re-
mind me of the greenfly in roses they are a kind of blight.

I do not want to be hard. I hope to God I am not unsym-
pathetic. But it seems to me there comes a time in life when one

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must realise one is grown up a man. And when it is no longer
decent to go on probing and probing. Life is so short. The world
is rich. There are so many adventures possible. Why do we not
gather our strength together and LIVE? It all comes to much the
same thing. In youth most of us are, for various reasons, slaves.
And then, when we are able to throw off our chains, we prefer
to keep them. Fredom is dangerous, is frightening.

If only I can be good enough writer to strike a blow for free-
dom! It is the one axe I want to grind. Be free and you can af-
ford to give yourself to life! Even to believe in life.

I do not go all the way with Lawrence. His ideas of sex mean
nothing to me. But I feel nearer L. than anyone else. All these
last months I have thought as he does about many things.

Does this sound nonsense to you ? Laugh at me if you like or
scold me. But remember what a disadvantage it is having to write
such things. If we were talking one could say it all in a few words.
It is so hard not to dress one's ideas up in their Sunday clothes and
make them look all stiff and shining in a letter. My ideas look
awful in their best dresses.

(Now I have made myself a glass of tea. Every time I drop a
piece of lemon into a glass of tea I say " Koteliansky." Perhaps it is
a kind of grace.)

I went for such a lovely drive to-day behind a very intelligent
horse who listened to every word the driver and I said and heartily
agreed. One could tell from his ears that he was extremely inter-
ested in the conversation. They are thinning the vines for the last
time before harvest. One can almost smell the grapes. And in the
orchards apples are reddening; it is going to be a wonderful year
for pears.

But one could write about the drive for as many pages as there
are in Ulysses.

It is late. I must go to bed. Now the train going to Italy has
flashed past. Now it is silent again except for the old toad who goes
Xfl-Ka-J#-Ka laying down the law.

To Sir Harold Beauchamp July 28, 7922

The days seem to whisk away here so fast that I don't think
the farmer's wife would be in time to chop off their tails. I spend

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a large part of them tapping out my new long story or short novel
on my little Corona. But I have been thinking of you so much,
dearest, and hoping that your climatic and physical conditions
are both more settled. I heard from C. that you had been to see my
good Doctor. I hope he satisfied you and that you did not think
I had overpraised him. It would be very nice to know from you
what you thought of him.

Since I last wrote we have had every variety of weather from
Winter to Spring. To-day, for instance, began with a cold down-
pour, gradually changed until it was a damp, tropical morning,
and now it's a sharp Autumn evening. It's very difficult to adjust
one's attire to these lightning changes. The only safe recipe is to
start with flannel next to the skin, and build up or cast off from
that. What a frightful bother! But judging from the reports in
the Times, England has turned over a summer leaf again. Long
may it remain fair!

There is a remarkable old talker here at present an American,
aged eighty-eight with his wife and daughter. The daughter
looks about sixty-five. According to the ancient gentleman, they
have been on the wing ever since he retired at the age of seventy-
five, and they intend remaining on the wing for another fifteen
years or so! He is full of fire still, dresses every night for dinner,
plays bridge, and loves to start a gossip with, " In the year 1865."
It's very interesting listening to his memories of early Noo York
and of American life generally 'way back. I think he mistook me
for a young person home for the holidays. For he introduced him-
self with the words, " Boys seem skeerce here. May be you
wouldn't mind if I tried to entertain you a li'll." When he said
boys, I thought at first he must be alluding to farm labourers, but
then memories of American novels " put me right," as they say.

J. is still in his lofty perch among the mountains. At the week-
ends, whenever the weather is wet, we play billiards. There is a
splendid table here and we are both very keen. It's a fascinating
game. I remember learning to hold a cue at Sir Joseph Ward's, and
I can see now R.'s super-refinement as if she expected each ball
to be stamped with a coronet before she would deign to hit it.

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To Edmund Blunden July 1922

It is awfully kind of you to have sent me a copy of your lovely
poem, Old Homes. Many, many thanks. I like especially the verse
beginning:

Thence, too, when high wind through the black clouds
pouring

One walks straight into your chill, pale, wet world as one reads.
... I love the sound of water in poetry.

How are you, I wonder, and where are you spending the sum-
mer? It's the moment here when all the dahlias are out, every
little child is eating a green apple, the vines have been cut down
for the last time and the grapes are as big as marbles. In fact, this
whole valley is one great ripening orchard. Heavens! how beauti-
ful apple trees are ! But you know these things a great deal better
than I do.

If H. M. T. is near by give him my love, will you ?

To J. M. Murry August 7922

Early Edition.

I think Amos Barton is awful and there's nothing to say for it.

In the first place poor George Eliot's Hymn to the Cream Jug
makes me feel quite queasy (no wonder she harps on biliousness
and begins her description of a feast: " Should one not be bilious
there is no pleasanter sight, etc.") ; in the second place, the idea
of lovely, gentle, fastidious, Madonna-like Mrs. Barton having
8 children in 9 years by that pock-marked poor " mongrel " (her
own words) with the blackened stumps for teeth is simply dis-
gusting! If I thought the poor little pamphlet was designed to put
in a word in favour of Birth Control I could bear it. But far
from it. Each chubby chubby with a red little fist and TEN black
nails (how is that for charm?) rouses a kind of female canni-
balism in G. E. She gloats over the fat of babies.

I have always heard Amos Barton was one of her best stories.
You know, it's very very bad that we haven't sincerer critics.
Having spread my peacock tail to that extent I had better depart.

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Not before saying what a truly frightful need England hath of
thee.

Later edition.

I have just got your L. review and note. . . . About your re-
view. I think you are absolutely right in every word of it every
word. I think you occasionally use more words of praise than
are necessary; it sounds too effusive and will raise suspicion. Shall
I tone it down a bit on my typewriter, or send it as it is? I'll
phone you and ask. Oh, I long for a paper this morning!! I have
been " making up " a paper ever since I read your review. I shall
start one, too, jolly soon. For three years only. But what years!

Don't you think it might be a good idea if this week you came
on Sunday instead of Saturday ? Give us a longer week. That is if
you are at all presse or inclined to the notion. Otherwise you
won't mind, will you, if I do a bit of work on Saturday while
you are in the garden ?

H'm yes. After my Spartan suggestion has been written, I ta\e
it bac^ I say instead what I have said about working . . . and
hope I'll be able to look out of the window and see your summer
feltie below. Yes, indeed, come Saturday unless you don't want to,
or think that the female will is determined to drag you here. . . .

Once The Doves' Nest is finished I shall leave here. But it
will take a fortnight, not a week. It's too expensive. I must draw
in my horns for the next six months, somehow. Blow!

My watch is still a li'll golden angel. And what a big brown
angel that chest is! With two little windows at the sides and a
chimney at the top we could almost live in it open the lid
softly for the milkman and the wild strawberry man. . . .

To S. S. Koteliansfy August 2, 7922

I hope you are better. If you need a doctor, Sorapure is a good
man intelligent and quiet. He does not discuss Lloyd George
with one, either. This is a great relief. All the other English doc-
tors that I know have just finished reading The Daily Mail
by the time they reach me.

It is a pity that Lawrence is driven so far. I am sure that Western
Australia will not help. The desire to travel is a great, real tempta-

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tion. But does it do any good ? It seems to me to correspond to the
feelings of a sick man who thinks always " if only I can get away
from here I shall be better." However there is nothing to be
done. One must go through with it. No one can stop that sick
man, either, from moving on and on. His craving is stronger than
he. But Lawrence, I am sure, will get well.

... I believe one can cure nobody, one can change nobody
fundamentally. The born slave cannot become a free man. He can
only become free-er. I have refused to believe that for years, and
yet I am certain it is true, it is even a law of life. But it is equally
true that hidden in the slave there are the makings of the free man.

And these makings are very nice in , very sensitive and

generous. I love her for them. They make me want to help
her as much as I can.

I am content. I prefer to leave our meeting to chance. To know
you are there is enough. If I knew I was going to die I should
even ask you definitely to come and see me. For I should hate to
die without one long, uninterrupted talk with you. But short
of it it does not greatly matter.

To Sir Harold Beauchamp August 10, 1922

I have delayed answering your letter which I was most
happy to receive because I felt there was a possibility that I
might be forced, for reasons of health only, to make a little
change in my plans. I hoped this would not be necessary, but
it is. To " come straight to the horses " my heart has been
playing up so badly this last week that I realise it is imperative
for me to see Doctor Sorapure before I go on with my Paris
treatment. As I am due to begin this Paris treatment on Septem-
ber ist, I have decided that my best plan is to come straight to
London next Tuesday, arriving Wednesday, i6th. Until I have
had an opinion on the present condition of my heart I am
really a thoroughly unsatisfactory companion. I could neither
go about with you, nor add to your enjoyment in any way. And
to sit with me in the bedroom of a foreign hotel would be ex-
tremely small beer indeed ! And I could not forgive myself if my
disquieting symptoms became aggravated in Paris and caused
you uneasiness. You know what a heart is like! I hope this

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trouble is something that can be corrected easily. I feel sure it is.
But until I know just what it is there is always the feeling I may
be doing the very thing that will send me on my last journey
before my work is anything like finished here below! That's
what I have been feeling all this week.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett August n, 7922

I can't arrive before Thursday afternoon. No sleeper before
then. Your clouds like Feather Boas are perfeck!

This yours is such a very nice letter that it is a good thing
we shall meet so soon, I feel inclined to come by the perambulator
and have done with it.

Why do things need so many nails ? Why can't one use safety
pins? They are so much quicker and they are deadly Secure.
Once you have clasped yourself to a safety pin human flesh and
blood can't separate you.

(Let us go and see Charlie Chaplin when I come. Shall we?
On the Fillums, of course, I mean.)

This place is flaming with Gladioli, too. As for the dahlias
they are rampant everywhere. The pears which we had for lunch
are iron pears, with little copper plums and a zinc greengage
or two.

L. M., smelling the luggage from afar, is in her element. She
is hung round with tickets already and almost whistles and
shunts when she brings me my tisane. I am moving already
myself, the writing table is gliding by, and I feel inclined to
wave to people in the Garden.

Elizabeth came yesterday with one of the Ladies Fair. I must
say she had ravishing deep, deep grey eyes. She seemed, too,
divinely happy. She is happy. She has a perfect love, a man.
They have loved each other for eight years and it is still as radiant,
as exquisite as ever. I must say it is nice to gaze on people who
are in love. M. has taken up golf. I've always wondered when this
would happen. . . .

To Richard Murry August 14, 1922

I did a thing to-day which it has been in my mind to do for a
long time. I made a will, signed it, and got it duly witnessed. In

Letters 1922

it I left you my large pearl ring. My idea in leaving it to you
was that you should give it -if you care to to your woman
whoever she may be. I hope you won't think this ghoulish. But
Jack gave me the ring and I feel it would be nice to keep it in
the family.

This doesn't mean, of course, that I am not as large as life and
twice as natural. But just in case I was " taken sudden." I'd like
you to know why the ring is yours.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett August 14, 7922

I wired you to-day. This is just to say how glad I shall be if you
can put me up on Wednesday. I have been horribly ill since you
left. I must see Sorapure with as little delay as possible. Please
don't tell anyone I am coming, not even Koteliansky. Don't
make preparations for me, will you? What would be per-
jcct would be to feel you just let me in without giving me a
moment's thought. You know what I mean ? Everything will be
nice. There's only one thing. If you can put me into a bedroom
rather than the sitting room. . . . No, I take that back. That's
nonsense. If you knew how those orange flowery curtains are
waving in my mind at this moment! Will you really be at your
door on Wednesday? Or is it a fairy tale!

6, Pond Street,
Hampstead,N.W.3
To Sir Harold Beauchamp Friday

August 18, 1922

I still feel guilty at having so disarranged your plans. My only
consolation is that travelling on the Continent, at this moment,
is very poor fun. Even when one has reserved seats in all the
trains and so on, the immense crowds intrude. First-class car-
riages are full of third-class passengers, and the boat absolutely
swarmed with ladies and babies all in an advanced state of mal
de mer!

However, travelling never tires me as it does most people. I even
enjoy it, discomforts and all. And we arrived here to find all
kinds of thoughtful preparations, down to the good old fashioned

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Bath Bun with sugar on the top an old favourite of mine.
It made me feel I was anchored in England again.

I saw Doctor Sorapure this morning and went over the battle-
field with him. As far as one could say from a first view, it was
not at all unsatisfactory. He says my heart is not diseased in any
way. He believes its condition is due to my left lung, and it's tied
up with the lung in some way for the present. It's all rather com-
plicated. But the result of the interview was that there is noth-
ing to be feared from its behaviour. I mean its tricks are more
playful than fierce. And the more exercise I take in the way of
walking and moving about the better. It may stretch it. Sounds
rather rum, doesn't it ? But the point is, darling, J. and I can meet
you anywhere in London, any time. This house is rather hard
to find. It's a queer nice little place, but on the Bohemian side,
i.e., I would trust its teas only not its lunches or dinners.

Sorapure thought I looked amazingly better, of course. Every-
body does. One feels a great fraud to have a well-built outside
and such an annoying interior.

To Violet Schiff August 21, 7922

It's strange to be here again. London is empty, cool, rather
shadowy, extraordinarily unlike Paris. I feel sentimental about it.
Only the people I've seen so far seem fatigue, fatigue beyond
words! 'One feels that they have come to an agreement not to
grow any more, to stay just so all clipped and pruned and tight.
As for taking risks, making mistakes, changing their opinions,
being in the wrong, committing themselves, losing themselves,
being human beings in fact no, a thousand times! "Let us sit
down and have a nice chat about minor eighteenth century
poetry "I never want to sit down and have a nice chat as long
as I live.

But it doesn't matter. They can't alter the fact that life is won-
derful. It's wonderful enough to sit here writing to you, dear
precious friend, and to lean back and think about you. The past
lets nothing be. Even our meetings in Paris are changed almost
beyond recognition. One sees them, linked together now, and
one realises the immense importance of the hero * of them (whom
I never saw and never shall see).

1 Marcel Proust.

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r~r-fr-r- f-r-f-r'ir-i'-ir^r--"'-^--^ r^*"-"-* ~-"^f*r*r*f~e~f~f*4~e^**^im~if*~-r*^*~fj^-s--*^*~.r*\

But I could write to you for ever to-day and instead I'm
going out to lunch with Massingham pere. Could one possibly
shake him up lean across the table and say quietly

To Sir Harold Beauchamp August 22, 7922

Just a note to say how very happy I was to see you yesterday
and how much I enjoyed our lunch and talk. I only hope you
feel as young as you look and that your bout of ill health is a
thing of the past. The girls looked so well and charming, too.
Wee Jeannie, though, looks almost too young to have a real live
husband. She ought to be married in a daisy chain with the
wedding service read from a seed catalogue, as it used to be when
we were children.

It's a sad pity that New Zealand is so far, dearest Papa. How nice
it would be if we could all foregather more often.

By this same post I am sending you a copy of my book.

To Violet Schiff August 24, 7922

Will you forgive me if I do not accept your invitation to come
and stay with you and Sydney? The truth is I am such a bad
visitor (as one is a bad sailor) that I have made it a rule nowadays
never to stay with anyone unless it is absolutely necessary. I hope
this does not sound too extravagant and ungracious. I could give
you literally hundreds of reasons for it. I look forward im-
mensely to seeing you both in town next month. Isn't the country
rather chill? The country is so terribly airy.

I have " taken " Brett's first floor for the next three miserable
months and hope to be settled soon. At present all is in the air,
and I can't work or even think of work. It will be very nice to
have my own possessions and to be out of hotels for a time,
without being en menage. I haven't the domestic virtues.

I see Eliot's new magazine is advertised to appear shortly. It
looks very full of rich plums. I think Prufroc^ by far by far and
away the most interesting and the best modern poem. It stays in
the memory as a work of art so different in that to Ulysses.
The further I am away from it, the less I think of it. As to reading
it again, or even opening that great tome never! What I feel
about Ulysses is that its appearance sometime was inevitable.

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Things have been heading that way for years. It ought to be re-
garded as a portentous warning. But there is little chance of that,
I fear.

Are you well? I feel so much better these last few days. My
doctor, who is an angel, seems to be curing my heart with dark
brown sugar 1

To William Gcrhardi

No, dear Mr. Gerhardi,

I don't always feel I have offended you. I only felt it once
when the pause was so very long. But now it is hard to write
to you when I know you are laughing at my poor little " y's " and
"g's" and "d's." They feel so awkward; they refuse to skip
any more. The little "g" especially is shy, with his tail in his
mouth like an embarrassed whiting.

I am very very sorry you are ill. I hope you will soon be better.
I shall send you a little packet of tea on Monday. Please have a
special little pot made and drink it with un peu de citron
if you like citron. It tastes so good when one is in bed this tea,
I mean. It always makes me feel even a little bit drunk well,
perhaps drunk is not quite the word. But the idea, even, of the
short story after a cup or two seems almost too good to be true,
and I pledge it in a third cup as one pledges one's love. . . .

I have decided to stay in London for three months. Then I go
to Italy to the Lago di Garda. Perhaps we shall meet before then.
I have taken a minute flat at this address and by the end of next
week I shall be working again. I have a book to finish and I want
to write a play this autumn. . . . It's very nice to be in London
again, rather like coming back to one's dear wife. But I wish
the intelligentsia were not quite so solemn, quite so determined
to sustain a serious conversation only. They make one feel like
that poor foreigner arraigned before Mr. Podsnap on the hearth-
rug in Our Mutual Friend. I shall never, while Life lasts, be able
to take Life for granted in the superb way they do.

Are you able to work? I am glad Middleton Murry's short
notice pleased you. I hope the Evening News man * has done
you proud, too. And some one wrote to me and wondered if you
would come to lunch one Sunday. But who am I to say ?

i This was J.M.M.
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To Anne Estelle Rice August 28, 1922

I can't tell you what a joy it was to see you yesterday, dear
and tres tres belle amie. How I loved looking at you again. And
hearing you. And seeing your home everything. I so look for-
ward to our meeting often this autumn. I do hope we may. Jack
Murry sends his love. He's just had a new suit made and is stand-
ing in front of me.

/. M. : " Are the trousers full enough ? "

K. M. : " Quite full enough! "

/.Af.:" You're sure?"

X.M.:" Certain!"

/.M.:" They're not too full?"

KM. :"Not in the least!"

/. M.:" You're sure?"

K. M. .'"Certain!"

I must run and get a Bible and swear on it, " Those trousers arc
PERFECT!! " Men are funny, aren't they? But very nice, too.

To Sydney Schiff Monday

August 7922

Your letter made me feel angry with myself and very ungra-
cious at having refused your so kind invitation. Please forgive
me! I look forward more than I can say to seeing you and Violet
in London. By the time you come I hope to be settled in my new
rooms (they are at this address) I am already dreaming no end
of a talk before my fire.

I shall never be able to say a word to the intelligentsia, Sydney.
They are too lofty, too far removed. No, that is unfair. It's simply
that they are not in the least interested. Nor do they appear to
know what one is driving at when one groans at the present
state of English writing. As I see it the whole stream of English
literature is trickling out in little innumerable marsh trickles.

There is no gathering together, no force, no impetus, abso-
lutely no passion! Why this is I don't know. But one feels
a deathly cautiousness in everyone a determination not to be
caught out. Who wants to catch them out or give them away?
I can't for the life of me see the need of this acute suspicion and

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narrowness. Perhaps the only thing to do is to ignore it all and
go on with one's own job. But I confess that seems to me a poor
conclusion to come to. If I, as a member of the orchestra, think
I am playing right, try my utmost to play right, I don't want
to go on in the teeth of so many others not playing at all or
playing as I believe falsely. It is a problem. Let us talk it all
over.

About Lawrence. Yes, I agree there is much triviality, much
that is neither here nor there. And a great waste of energy that
ought to be well spent. But I did feel there was growth in Aaron's
Rod there was no desire to please or placate the public, I did
feel that Lorenzo was profoundly moved. Because of this, per-
haps, I forgive him too much his faults.

It's vile weather here a real fog. I am alone in the house
10.30 P.M. Footsteps pass and repass that is a marvellous sound
and the low voices talking on dying away. It takes me
back years to the agony of waiting for one's love

To Lady Ottolinc Morrdl Monday

August 7922

I would simply love to meet you at Taylor's whenever you
ask me to come. Or if you would rather I met you anywhere
else I shall be there. I can't walk yet absurd as it sounds
only a few puffing paces, a most humiliating and pug-like per-
formance. But once I get my legs back or rather once my heart is
stronger I shall not be dependent on taxis. I live in them since I
have come to London. I have got Fat Wyndham Lewis I hear
is also fat, May Sinclair has waxed enormous, Anne Rice can't
be supported by her ankles alone I try to comfort myself with
many examples. But I don't really care it is awful how little
one cares. Anything rather than illness rather than the sofa,
and that awful dependence on others!

I rather look forward to these three months in London, once
I have got out of my boxes and into a real corner of my own. I
dream of brand new friends not the dreadfully solemn " in-
tensive " ones not the mind-probers. But young ones who aren't
ashamed to be interested. Dear little Gerhardi who wrote Futility
is one he sounds awfully nice. And there's another I met in

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Switzerland so attractive! I don't think I care very much for
the real intelligentsia, Ottoline, dearest. And they seem to be so
uneasy, so determined not to be caught out! Who wants to catch
them?

I wish you would come to Italy for part of next winter. Do you
know the Lago di Garda ? They say it is so lovely. And the jour-
ney is nothing.

It will be such a real joy to see you again.

To Sylvia Lynd September 79, 7922

It's the most miserable news to know you are in bed again and
that again such bad sorrowful things have been happening to
you. . . . What can one say ? I had so hoped and believed that
your lean years were over. May they be over now!

I'd love to come and see you. But stairs are unclimbable by
me. I am better, but I can't walk more than a few yards. I can
walk about a house and give a very good imitation of a perfectly
well and strong person in a restaurant or from the door across
the pavement to the taxi. But that's all. My heart still won't
recover. I think I shall be in England two to three months, as
there is a man here who can give me the X-ray treatment I've
been having in Paris. After that I shall go to Italy. But all is
vague. I'm seeing the specialist to-day. I may have to go back
to Paris almost immediately. What it is to be in doctors' hands!

If I stay, I do hope we shall be able to meet later on, perhaps.
Let us arrange some easy place for both of us then. It would
be most awfully nice to have a talk. I'm living in two crooked
little rooms here in a little crooked house. It's a relief to be away
from hotels after five months in Paris in a hotel bedroom over-
looking a brick wall.

I'll never be able to knock any spots off this city, my dear.
It frightens me. When I'm with people I feel rather like an
unfortunate without a racquet standing on the tennis court while
a smashing game is being played by the other three it's a
rather awful and rather silly feeling.

Don't forget how much I'd love to see you. Or how sorry
I am for everything.

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To J. M. Murry September 29, 1922

. . . Ah, I had such a sad letter to-day from R. W. Goodbye
Arno! She is afraid there will be no Arno for her. And goodbye
Paris and the Manoukhin treatment! It cannot be for her.
" Every day I am getting worse." Brave, noble little soul shining
behind those dark, lighted eyes! She has wanted so much, she
has had so little! She wants so terribly just to be allowed to warm
herself to have a place at the fire. But she's not allowed. She's
shut out. She must drive on into the dark. Why? Why can't I
go to Rome? I should like to start for Rome to-day, just to kiss
her hands and lay my head on her pillow. It is so terrible to be
alone.

Outside my window there are leaves falling. Here, in two days,
it is autumn. Not late autumn, but bright gold everywhere. Are
the sunflowers out at the bottom of the vegetable garden ? There
are quantities of small Japanese sunflowers, too, aren't there ? It's
a mystery, Bogey, why the earth is so lovely. . . .

R. has just been in again to finish his drawing. Then we went
downstairs and he played. But what am I telling you? Nothing!
Yet much happened. Don't you think it's queer how we have to
talk " little language " to make one word clothe, feed and start
in life one small thought?

To Sylvia Lynd September 29, 1922

How glad I should have been to have seen you next week. But
I am being swep' away again to Paris next Monday, to go on with
my X-ray treatment. Why do I always have to write to you about
complaints! It is a horrid fate. But there it is. The bad weather
here these last few days (it's fine, of course, since I bought my
ticket) has brought my cough back again, stronger than ever for
its small holiday. And my Paris doctor threatens me with a com-
plete return to the sofa if I don't go through with his course. I
thought I could manage to have the same thing done here. But it's
not the same, and it's frightening to play with these blue rays.

So there are my steamer trunk and hat box on the carpet eye-
ing each other, walking round each other, ready to begin the fight

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all over again. And I shan't see you or talk to you or give you tea
or hear about anything. I'm so very, very sorry!

Are you really better ? It's good news to know you are able to
come as far as Hampstead. I have been staying in a tiny little
house here, behind a fan of trees, with one of those green con-
volvulus London gardens behind it. It's been beyond words a rest
to be in a private house again with a private staircase and no res-
taurant, nobody in buttons, no strange, foreign gentleman staring
at your letters in the letter rack. Oh, how I hate hotels! They
are like permanent railway stations without trains.

There's the dinner bell. I must go down into the hold and eat.
I have been doing the housekeeping here. It was very homelike
to hear the sole domestic say, " I know a party, m'm, as is a nice
'and with mouse 'oles, 'aving them in the kitchen somethink
dreadful! " So unlike pert Suzanne and jolie Yvonne.

To Anne Estelle Rice September 30, 1922

Here are the books; so many thanks for them. I think some of
the stories in A Hasty Bunch are quite extraordinarily good. All
of them have interested me immensely. There is something so
fresh and unspoilt about the writer, even when he is a little bit
self-conscious in the youthful way, you know. But he has got
real original talent and I think he'll do awfully good work. He's
much more interesting than these sham young super-cultured crea-
tures. I hope he gets on with his job. I feel I'd like to help him if I
could, in some way. But I expect he'd scorn that idea.

Do you know, cherie, I'm off to France on Monday. I want to go
on with that treatment there rather than here and for many
many reasons I enfin well, there's something in England
that just pushes me off the nest. It's no good. I shall never " settle "
here. But Brett is keeping my two little rooms here for flying
visits. It's nice to have them.

I am going to try your Hotel Jacob. I hope they will have rooms.
Of course, ever since I took my ticket, the sun has come out and
there's a kind of blue tinge in the sky, quite a piece of it. But if I
tore my ticket up it would be snowing at tea-time. I shall never
forget my LUNCH with you.

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To the Hon. Dorothy Brett Select Hotel

Place de la Sorbonne

Paris
October 3, 7922

I can see your eyes laughing at the name of my hotel. What a
name. One can only breathe it. Never mind. If only you knew how
glad I am to be. in it after our chase round Paris last night.

We had a divine crossing, very still silvery sea with gulls mov-
ing on the waves like the lights in a pearl. It was fiery hot in Calais
Whoof ! It was blazing. And there were old women with pears
to sell wherever you looked or didn't look

Voici mes jolies poires!

Yellowy green with leaves among them. Old hands holding up the
satiny baskets. So beautiful. English ladies buying them and trying
to eat them through their veils. So awful. The way to Paris was
lovely too. All the country just brushed over with light gold, and
white oxen ploughing and a man riding a horse into a big dark
pond. Paris, too, very warm and shadowy with wide spaces and
lamps a kind of glow-worm red not yellow at all.

Then began the chase. It ended in a perfectly FEARFUL room
that looked like the scene of a long line of murders. The water in
the pipes sobbed and gurgled and sighed all night and in the
morning it sounded as though people broke open the shutters
with hatchets.

Then I remembered this hotel where I stayed during the bom-
bardment. Still here. Still the same. I have a funny room on the
6th floor that looks over the roofs of the Sorbonne. Large grave
gentlemen in marble bath gowns are dotted on the roof. Some
hold up a finger; some are only wise. A coy rather silly-looking
eagle is just opposite perched on a plaque, called Geologic. I like
this view fearfully. And every hour a small, rather subdued, re-
gretful little bell chimes. This is not at all a chic large hotel like
the Victoria Palace. It's quiet. One goes out for food, which is
much the best arrangement. It's very cheap, too. Gone are my
sumptuous days of suites and salles de bain. I always hated them
and now I don't need them, thank God.

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Letters 7922

To William Gcrhardi October 7922

I am very shaken to-day after a small minor revolution in the
night. I put a vacuum flask full of boiling tea on the table by my
bed last night and at about two o'clock in the morning there was
a most TERRIFIC explosion. It blew up everything. People ran
from far and near. Gendarmes broke through the shutters with
hatchets, firemen dropped through trap doors. Or very nearly.
At any rate the noise was deafening and when I switched on the
light there was my fiaschino outwardly calm still but tinkling in-
ternally in a terribly ominous way and a thin sad trickle oozed
along the table.

I have nobody to tell this to to-day. So I hope your eyes roll. I
hope you appreciate how fearful it might have been had it burst
0#/wardly and not ///wardly.

Bon jour, Mr. Gerhardi. I am so sorry we have not met in Eng-
land. But after all I had to come abroad again and I shall spend
the next three months in Paris instead of London. Perhaps we
shall not meet until you are very old. Perhaps your favourite
grandson will wheel you to my hotel then (I'm doomed to
hotels) and instead of laughing, as we should now, a faint,
light, airy chuckle will pass from bath chair to bath chair

I don't awfully like the name of your new book, 1 but I am sure
the booksellers will. But then I don't very much like the idea of
so-called somersaults in the first person. But I am certain the pub-
lic will.

I wonder for how long you have put aside your novel About
Love. Please tell me when you take it up again.

No, I didn't see the English Review. It's raining. I must rescue
my dear little John Milton from the window sill.

Rescued. . . .

People went on asking me about Mr. Gerhardi. His past, his
present, his future, his favourite jam, did he prefer brown bread
for a change sometimes. I answered everything.

I hope to have rather a better book out in the spring.

Goodbye. Are you quite well again? The weather is simply
heavenly here.

1 The book was abandoned. (W.G.)

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Letters 1922

To /. M. Murry October 4, 7922

... I don't feel influenced by Y. or D. I merely feel I've heard
ideas like my ideas, but bigger ones, far more definite ones. And
that there really is Hope real Hope, not half -Hope. ... As for
Tchekhov being damned why should he be ? Can't you rope
Tchekhov in ? I can. He's much nearer to me than he used to be.

It's nice to hear of Richard sawing off table-legs and being
moved by the greengrocer. Why is it greengrocers have such a
passion for bedding people out ? ... In my high little room for
10 francs a day with flowers in a glass and a quilted sateen bed-
cover, I don't feel far from R. either. Oh, it's awfully nice to have
passed private suites and marble-tops and private bathrooms by!
Gone! Gone for ever! I found a little restaurant last night where
one dines ever so sumptuous for 6-7 francs, and the grapes arc
tied with red satin bows, and someone gives the cat a stewed prune
and someone else cries: "Le chat a mange un compote de
pruneaux! "

True, one is no longer of people. But was one ever ? This look-
ing on, understanding what one can, is better.

October 6, 1922

. . . How very strange about your soldier! I wish I had seen
him. Petone! The Gear Company! And fancy your remembering
about those rugs. The way you told me the story reminded me of
D. H. L. somehow. It was quite different. I saw the soldier so
plainly, heard his voice, saw the deserted street on early closing
day, saw his clothes, the sack. " Old boy . . ." It was strangely
complete.

By the way, I wonder why things that happen in the rain seem
always more wonderful ? Do you feel that ? There's such a fresh-
ness about them, something so unexpected and vivid. I could go on
thinking of that for hours. . . .

It's the most lovely morning. There's just a light sailing breeze
and the sun is really hot. Thinking of London is like thinking of
living in a chimney. Are there really masses and masses of books ?
I do hope you won't forget to send me that Tchekhov. I look for-

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Letters 1922

ward to it very much. Can one get hold of Tolstoy's diaries? Is
there a cheap English edition that is not too cut and trimmed?
I wish you'd let me know. . . .

I was wondering if next time you went to the D.'s you would
take a bottle of barley-sugar to those young heroes. I feel things
like barley-sugar are apt to be a little scarce in that household,
and, however wonderful your Da may be, to have a pull, take it
out and look at it and put it back again does mean something.
I am sure Michael especially would agree. And then you'll be for
ever after the barley-sugar man which is a nice name.

October 8, 7922

. . . Yes, this is where I stayed pendant la guerre. It's the quiet-
est hotel I ever was in. I don't think tourists come at all. There
are funny rules about not doing one's washing or fetching in one's
cuisine from dehors which suggest a not rich an' grand clientele.
What is nice too is one can get a tray in the evening if one doesn't
want to go out. Fearfully good what I imagine is provincial cook-
ing all in big bowls, piping hot, brought up by the gargon who
is a v. nice fellow in a red veskit and white apron and a little grey
cloth capl I think some English traveller left it in a cupboard
about 1879. The salt and pepper stand, by the way, is a little glass
motor car. Salt is driver and Pepper Esquire is master in the back
seat the dark fiery one of the two, so different to plain old Salt.
. . . What a good fellow he is, though!

Yesterday the wind was nor' north by north by east by due east
by due east-north-east. If you know a colder one, it was there, too.
I had to thaw a one-franc piece to get the change out of it. (That
is a joke for your Sunday paper only!)

I've just read you on Bozzy. You awe me very much by your
familiarity with simply all those people. You've always such a vast
choice of sticks in the hall-stand for when you want to go walk-
ing and even a vaster choice of umbrellas while I go all un-
protected and exposed with only a fearful sense of the heavens
lowering.

Mary! There's a most beautiful magpie on my roof. Arc mag-
pies still wild ? Ah me, how little one knows!

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Letters 7922

To S. S. Koteliansfy October 9, 7922

I have finished the letters *; here they are. They are, the more
one looks into them, a remarkable revelation of what goes on
behind the scenes. Except for " Kiss the foal " and " buy the chil-
dren sweets; even doctors prescribe sweets for children," there is
hardly one statement that isn't pure matter-of-fact. The whole af-
fair is like the plot of a short story or small novel by himself; he
reacts to everything exactly as he would to a written thing. There's
no explanation, no evidence of a LIVING man, a REAL man. The
glimpse one has of his relationship with Anya is somehow petty
and stuffy, essentially a double bed relationship. And then " Tur-
genev read so badly"; they say he (D.) read so superbly Oh
dear, Oh dear, it would take an Anna Grigorevna to be proud
of such letters.

Yet this was a noble, suffering, striving soul, a real hero among
men wasn't he? I mean from his books. . . . The one who
writes the letters is the house porter of the other. I suppose one
ought not to expect to find the master at his own front door as
well as in his study. But I find it hard to reconcile myself to that.
I do not think these deep divisions in people are necessary or vital.
Perhaps it is cowardice in me.

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett October 9, 7922

Don't be cross with me if I am dull just now. My cough is so
much worse that I am a cough a living, walking or lying down
cough. Why I am allowed to stay in this hotel I can't imagine.
But there it is. I must have terribly kind neighbours. As soon as
it gets better I shall present a bouquet to the left door and to the
right. " From a grateful Patient." It's only the X-rays doing their
worst before they do their better. But it's a nuisance. Such a queer
effect on the boulevards here: the trees are out for a second Spring
frail small leaves, like you see in April. Lyrics in middle age
love song by old chestnuts over 50. All the same one's heart aches
to see them. There is something tragic in Spring.

If you knew how vivid the little house is, but vivid beyond
words. Not only for itself. It exists apart from all it is a whole

1 Dostoevsky's letters to his wife.
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Letters 7922

in life. I think of you. . . . One has such kindly soft tender
feelings

But to work to work. One must take just those feelings and
work with them. Life is a mystery. We can never get over that.
Is it a series of deaths and series of killings ? It is that too. But
who shall say where death ends and resurrection begins. That's
what one must do. Give it, the idea of resurrection, the power that
death would like to have. Be born again and born again faster than
we die. . . .

Tell me, why do you " warn " me ? What mustn't I be " too
sure " of? You mystify me. Do you think I am too sure of Love?
But if Love is there one must treat it as though one were sure of it
How else ? If it is not there I'd rather be sure of that, too. Or
do you mean something else ?

It has turned as cold as ice and colder. The sun shines but it
is soleil glace. It's due North and due East, all mixed up in the
same frozen bag. If it wasn't for the blue up above one would cry.

Don't let our next meeting be in Paris. It's no fun meeting in
hotels. And sitting on beds and eating in nasty old restaurants.
Let's wait a little longer and meet in the south in a warm still place
where I can put a cricket at your third ear so that you can hear
its song.

To ]. M. Murry October n, 7922

... It has got very cold here. I feel it. I am adjusting myself
to it and it makes me feel rather dull distrait, you know. I have
had to leave my dear little grenier au 6eme for something less
loftly, more expensive, but warmer. However, it's a very nice
room. " Et vous avez un beau pendule," as the gar^on said. He
thoroughly approves of the change. All the same, you say " Tell
me about yourself." I'll have a try. Here goes.

A new way of being is not an easy thing to live. Thinking about
it, preparing to meet the difficulties and so on, is one thing, meet-
ing those difficulties another. I have to die to so much; I have to
make such big changes. I feel the only thing to do is to get the
dying over to court it, almost. (Fearfully hard, that.) And then
all hands to the business of being born again. What do I mean
exactly ? Let me give you an instance. Looking back, my boat is

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Letters 7922

almost swamped sometimes by seas of sentiment. " Ah, what I
have missed ! How sweet it was, how dear, how warm, how simple,
how precious! " And I think of the garden at the Isola Bella and
the furry bees and the house-wall so warm. But then I remember
what we really felt there the blanks, the silences, the anguish of
continual misunderstanding. Were we positive, eager, real, alive ?
No, we were not. We were a nothingness shot with gleams of what
might be. But no more. Well, I have to face everything as far
as I can and see where I stand what remains.

For with all my soul I do long for a real life, for truth, and for
real strength. It's simply incredible, watching K. M., to see how
little causes a panic. She's a perfect corker at toppling over. . . .

October 13, 7922

. . . It's a divinely beautiful day so was yesterday. The sky is
as blue as the sky can be. I shall go to the Luxembourg Gardens
this afternoon and count dahlia and baby heads. The Paris gardens
are simply a glorious sight with flowers masses of beloved Japon-
ica, enough Japonica at last. I shall have a garden one day, and
work in it, too. Plant, weed, tie up, throw over the wall. And the
peony border really will be staggering. Oh, how I love flowers! I
think of them with such longing. I go through them, one after an-
other, remembering them from their first moments with love
oh, with rapture, as if they were babies! No, it's what other women
feel for babies perhaps. Oh, Earth ! Lovely, unforgettable Earth.
Yesterday, I saw the leaves falling, so gently, so softly, raining
down from little slender trees, golden against the blue. Perhaps
Autumn is loveliest. Lo! it is Autumn. What is the magic of that?
It is magic to me.

October 14, 7922

. . . About " doing operations on yourself." I know just what
you mean. It is as though one were the sport of circumstance
one is, indeed. Now happy, now unhappy, now fearful, now con-
fident, just as the pendulum swings. You see one can control
nothing if one isn't conscious of a purpose: it's like a journey
without a goal. There is nothing that makes you ignore some
things, accept others, order others, submit to others. For there

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is no reason why A. should be more important than B. So there
one is involved beyond words, feeling the next minute I may
be bowled over or struck all of a heap. I fyiow nothing.

This is to me a very terrible state of affairs. Because it's the cause
of all the unhappiness (the secret, profound, unhappiness) in my
life. But I mean to escape and to try to live differently. It isn't
easy. But is the other state easy? And I do believe with all my
being that if one can break through the circle, one finds " my
burden is light."

I've had such a queer birthday. L. M. brought me a brin of
mimosa. And I had my poem and the telegrams. Wasn't it awfully
nice of L. E. and W. J. to send one ? It's been sunny, too. But all
the same I'd rather not think about my birthday.

Oh, the little Tchekhov book has come. Do you think I might
have the Lit. Sup. with your article in it ? I see no papers here
at all. That's not a complaint, though. For Paris flaps with papers,
as you know. I haven't seen a single newspaper since leaving
London. There! Does that shock you?

October 15, 7922

. . . About being like Tchekhov, and his letters. Don't forget he
died at 43 that he spent how much of his life ? chasing about in
a desperate search after health. And if one reads " intuitively " the
last letters they are terrible. What is left of him ? " The braid on
German women's dresses bad taste " and all the rest is misery.
Read the last! All hope is over for him. Letters are deceptive, at
any rate. It's true he had occasional happy moments. But for the
last eight years he knew no security at all. We know he felt that
his stories were not half what they might be. It doesn't take much
imagination to picture him on his death-bed thinking, " I have
never had a real chance. Something has been all wrong."

To the Hon. Dorothy Brett October 15, 7922

I never had a lovelier letter from you. And it came on my birth-
day, wasn't that good fortune. Wasn't that like you, the billiard
champion ? I did love you for it! You have a real very rare gift for
writing letters. And oh how nice and long they are! Arrows, little

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Letters 7922

side borders, little flower beds very tight packed with words along
the edge I follow them all and even dip into the Egyptian Maze
though never to find my way in it!

Ah, my dear. Priceless exquisite treasures came floating out of
your letter. I have gathered them all up. But that reminds me of
the canary feathers. I am having a pair of wings made of them
for delicate occasions. Did you ever feel anything so airy-fairy?
I sat in the Luxembourg Gardens to-day and I thought of you.
I am glad you were not with me for I felt like a chat malade, sit-
ting in the sun and not a friend of anybody's. But all was so
ravishingly fall-of-the-year lovely that I felt how you would have
responded. The gardener was sweeping leaves from the bright
grass. The flowers are still glorious but still, as though suspended,
as though hardly daring to breathe. Down, down, soft and light
floated the leaves. They fall over babies and old people and the
laughing young. The fat pigeons-out-of-the-Ark are no longer
quite so fat. But they swing between the trees just as they did,
swooping and tumbling as if trying to scare one. Heavens! What
a lovely earth it is !

I am so glad you are going to Scotland. I feel it may do you good
to have a change. And it's nice to think of you fishing. Forgive
me if I feel the fish show off just a tiny little bit when you come
near, flash about, blow bubbles, swim on their heads. But that's
only my wickedness. For I feel you are very expert and grave
really and I should stand on the bank awed! You see I've only
fished with things like cottage loaves and a bent pin and a worm.

Tell me about Scotland. I do so hope it's going to be nice. I
wonder if you will take your velours hat. It suits you marvellously.
When I am rich you shall have velours hats by the dozing, and a
persian lamb jacket made like your jazz velvet coat, lined with
pale yellow brocade. A pinky pigeon grey very soft pleated skirt
to go with it, crocodile shoes, thick grey silk stockings. And in-
side the coat a straight tunic of silver jersey de soie. I confess I am
quite ravished away by you in the persian lamb coat. I have just
been with you to a concert you wearing it. Everybody turned
round; the orchestra stopped, the flute fainted and was carried
out. A dark gentleman stepped forward and presented you with
the Order of the Sun and Moon; it was the Shah of Persia. But I
must stop. Though I could go on for ever.

Letters 7922

It's Sunday evening. 6.30. I am lying in bed writing to you.
Just as before, I get up at midi and have to go to bed at about half
past five. But I feel far more ill this time than last time. I don't
know what is the matter, I am sick all the time and cold. But
as I've never imagined cold before an entirely new kind. One
feels like wet stone. Piping hot-water bottles, covers, grandma
jaegers, nothing will stop it. Then it goes and one burns instead.
And all this in a little band-box of a room. Never mind, it will
pass. To-morrow I am going to see Gurdjieff. I feel certain he
will help me. I feel equally certain that this particular horrid hour
is passing, and I'll come out of it, please heaven, a much nicer
creature. Not a snail. Not a creeping worm, either. I shall come
and make the whole of your garden before you can say " Painting-
brush." You just wait!

My dear little rooms. I shall be in them in the Spring, if I
manage to escape and I really think I shall.

I have seen very few people since I came. Only men connected
with the Institute, a very nice Doctor Young and a quite remark-
able other man rather like the chief mate on a cargo steamer.
A type I like. Work I can't at all for the present. Even reading
is very difficult.

The weather is marvellous. Where it is not blue it is gold. Oh,
I must tell you. We took a taxi out to lunch to-day (there's no food
here except supper trays) and who should be at the restaurant
but (of course, you guess) Mrs. D. Tres tres tres chic with such an
extra passionate Sunday Paris mouth and so terrifically at
home! I must say I liked her for it. It was so young. She sat be-
hind us. As we got out she saw me and I gave her a wretched cool
nod. Not on purpose. But at that moment I was overcome with
this confounded sickness and hardly knew what I was doing.
But I hope she won't think me very horrid for it. I don't like do-
ing such things.

But I am still not sincere with you. In my heart I am far more
desperate about my illness and about Life than I ever show you.
I long to lead a different life in every way. I have no belief what-
ever in any kind of medical treatment. Perhaps I am telling you
this to beg you to have faith in me - to believe that whatever
I do it is because I can't do otherwise. That is to say (let me say it
bang out) I may go into the Institute for three months. I don't

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Letters 7922

know that I shall. But if I have more faith in it than in Manoukhin
I certainly must. Keep this private. I know you will. But don't
speak to anybody about it.

Manoukhin isn't a magician. He has cured some people a
great many and some he hasn't cured. He made me fatter
that is quite true. But otherwise ? I'm exactly where I was before
I started. I " act " all the rest, because I am ashamed to do other-
wise, looking as I do. But it's all a sham. It amounts to nothing.
However this is just speculation. But as I am thinking it I felt
I ought to write it to you. See ? It is not a serious proposition.

To /. M . Murry October 17, 7922

I don't want any more books at present of any kind. I am sick
and tired of books, and that's a dreadful fact. They are to me like
sandwiches out of the Hatter's bag. I'll get back to them, of course.

A queer thing. I have cramp in my thumb and can hardly hold
the pen. That accounts for this writing. L. M. and I are off to
Fontainebleau this morning. I am taking my toothbrush and
comb. Dr. Young 'phoned me yesterday that there is a lovely room
all ready. I'll see G. and come back to-morrow. It's not sunny to-
day. What a terrible difference sun makes! It ought not to. One
ought to have a little core of inner warmth that keeps burning
and is 'only added to by sun. One has, I believe, if one looks
for it. ...

I must get up. The puffi train is, as usual, steaming up and down
my room at the very idea of going away, even for half a day.

To S. S. Koteliansfy October 19, 7922

I hope this letter will not surprise you too much. It has nothing
to do with our business arrangements. Since I wrote I have gone
through a kind of private revolution. It has been in the air for
years with me. And now it has happened very very much has
changed.

When we met in England and discussed " ideas " I spoke, as
nearly as one can, the deepest truth I knew to you. But even while
I spoke it I felt a pretender for my knowledge of this truth
is negative, not positive, as it were cold, and not warm with life.

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For instance all we have said of " individuality " and of being
strong and single, and of growing I believe it. I try to act up
to it. But the reality is far far different. Circumstances still hyp-
notise me. I am a divided being with a bias towards what I want
to be, but no more. And this it seems I cannot improve. No, I can-
not. I have tried. If you knew how many note books there are of
these trials, but they never succeed. So I am always conscious of
this secret disruption in me and at last (thank Heaven!) it has
ended in a complete revolution and I mean to change my whole
way of life entirely. I mean to learn to work in every possible way
with my hands, looking after animals and doing all kinds of
manual labour. I do not want to write any stories until I am a less
terribly poor human being. It seems to me that in life, as it is lived
to-day, the catastrophe is imminent; I feel this catastrophe in me.
I want to be prepared for it, at least.

The world as I know it is no joy to me and I am useless in it.
People are almost non-existent. This world to me is a dream and
the people in it are sleepers. I have known just instances of waking
but that is all. I want to find a world in which these instances arc
united. Shall I succeed ? I do not know. I scarcely care. What is
important is to try and learn to live really live and in rela-
tion to everything not isolated (this isolation is death to me).

Does this sound fatuous ? I cannot help it. I have to let you know
for you mean much to me. I know you will never listen to what-
ever foolish things other people may say about me. Those other
helpless people going round in their little whirlpool do not mat-
ter a straw to me.

All this sounds much too serious and dramatic. As a matter of
fact there is absolutely no tragedy in it; of course.

To J. A/. Murry October 21, 7922

... I have been through a little revolution since my last letter.
I suddenly made up my mind (for it was sudden, at the last) to
try and learn to live by what I believed in, no less, and not as in
all my life up till now to live one way and think another ... I
don't mean superficially, of course, but in the deepest sense I've
always been disunited. And this, which has been my "secret

- 509 -

Letters 1922

sorrow " for years, has become everything to me just now. I really
can't go on pretending to be one person and being another any
more, Boge. It is a living death. So I have decided to make a clean
sweep of all that was " superficial " in my past life and start again
to see if I can get into that real simple truthful full life I dream
of. I have been through a horrible deadly time coming to this. You
know the kind of time. It doesn't show much, outwardly, but one
is simply chaos within !

. . . No treatment on earth is any good to me, really. It's all
pretence. M. did make me heavier and a little stronger. But that
was all if I really face the facts. The miracle never came near hap-
pening. It couldn't, Boge. And as for my spirit well, as a result
of that life at the Victoria Palace I stopped being a writer. I have
only written long or short scraps since The Fly. If I had gone on
with my old life I never would have written again, for I was dying
of poverty of life.

I wish when one writes about things, one didn't dramatize them
so. I feel awfully happy about all this, and it's all as simple as can
be. ... In any case I shan't write any stories for three months,
and I'll not have a book ready before the spring. It doesn't matter.

Le Prieure
Fontainebleau-Avon
Seine-et-Marne
October 23, 7922

. . . I'll tell you what this life is more like than anything; it is
like Gulliver's Travels. One has, all the time, the feeling of having
been in a wreck and by the mercy of Providence, got ashore
somewhere. . . . Simply everything is different. Not only lan-
guages, but food, ways, people, music, methods, hours all. It's a
real new life. . . .*

Dr. Young, a real friend of mine, comes up and makes me a
good fire. In " return " I am patching the knee of his trousers to-
day. But it's all " stranger " than that. For instance, I was look-
ing for wood the other evening. All the boxes were empty. I found
a door at the end of the passage, went through and down some
stone steps. Presently steps came up and a woman appeared, very

1 A detailed account of life at the Gurdfeff Institute is contained in an essay by
Dr. James Young in The New Adelphi for September 1928.

Letters 1922

simply dressed, with her head bound in a white hankerchief. She
had her arms full of logs. I spoke in French, but she didn't under-
stand English, no good. But her glance was so lovely laugh-
ing and gentle, absolutely unlike people as I have known people.
Then I patted a log and she gave it to me and we went our
ways. . . .

October 26, 7922

. . . All I am doing now is trying to put into practice the " ideas "
I have had for so long, of another and a far more truthful exist-
ence. I want to learn something that no books can teach me, and
I want to try and escape from my terrible illness. That again you
can't be expected to understand. You think I'm like other people
I mean, normal. I'm not. I don't know which is the ill me and
which is the well me. I am simply one pretence after another.
Only now I recognise it. ...

As for writing stories and " being true to one's gift," I couldn't
write them if I were not here, even. I am at an end of my source
for the time. Life has brought me no flaw. I want to write, but
differently far more steadily.

October 27, 7922

. . . What are you going to do to the fruit trees ? Please tell me.
We have masses of quinces here. They are no joke when they fall
expres on your head.

I do hope you are having this glorious weather. Day after day
of perfect sunshine. It's like Switzerland: an intense blue sky, a
chill in the air, a wonderful clarity so that you see people far
away, all sharp-cut and vivid.

I spend all the time in the garden. Visit the carpenters, the trench
diggers. (We are digging for a Turkish Bath not to discover
one, but to lay the pipes.) The soil is very nice here, like sand,
with small whitey-pinky pebbles in it. Then there are the sheep to
inspect, and the new pigs that have long golden hair very
mystical pigs. A mass of cosmic rabbits and hens and goats are
on the way. . . . It's so full of life and humour that I wouldn't
be anywhere else. It's just the same all through ease after ri-
gidity expresses it more than anything else. And yet I realise, as I

= 511 =

Letters 1922

write this, that it's no use. An old personality is trying to get back
to the outside and observe, and it's not true to the present facts
at all. What I write seems so petty. In fact, I feel I cannot express
myself in writing just now. The old mechanism isn't mine any
longer, and I can't control the new. I just have to talk this baby
talk. . . .

October 28, 7922

. . . There is always this danger of deceiving oneself. I feel it,
too. I only begin to get rid of it by trying and trying to relax
to give way. I am sure you will understand why it is so hard to
write. We don't move in our letters. We say the same things over
and over.

As I tried to explain, I'm in such a state of transition. I could not,
if I would, get back to the old life and I can't deal with the new.
But anxiety I never feel. Perhaps I shall. I cannot tell.

November 4, 7922

. . . Ever since my last letter to you I have been enraged with
myself. It's so like me. I am ashamed of it. But you who know me
will perhaps understand. I always try to go too fast. I always think
all can be changed and renewed in the twinkling of an eye. It is
most fearfully hard for me, as it is for you, not to be " intense."
And whenever I am intense (really, this is so) I am a little bit false.
Take my last letter and the one before. The tone was all wrong.
As to any new truth oh, Boge, I am really ashamed of myself.
It's so very wrong. Now I have to go back to the beginning and
start again and again tell you that I have been " over-fanciful,"
and I seem to have tried to force the strangeness. Do you know
what I mean? Let me try now to face facts. Of course, it is true
that life here is quite different, but violent changes to one's in-
dividuality of course, they do not occur. . . .

All my friends accepted me as a frail half-creature who migrated
towards sofas. Oh, just wait and see how you and I will live one
day so happily, so splendidly. But in the meantime, please never
take what I say for " absolute." I do not take what you say for
" final." I try to see it as relative.

- 512 -

Letters 7922

November 7922

. . . The stockings arrived in perfect order. What an extraor-
dinary brain wave, to hide them in the Times! They are very
lovely stockings, too, just the shade I like in the evening. One's
legs are like legs by moonlight.

It's intensely cold here colder and colder. I have just been
brought some small fat pine-logs to mix with my boulets. Boulets
are unsatisfactory; they are too passive. I simply live in my fur-
coat. I gird it on like my heavenly armour and wear it ever night
and day. After this winter the Arctic even will have no terrors
for me. Happily the sun does shine as well and we are thoroughly
well nourished. But I shall be glad when the year has turned.

Are you having really perfect weather (except for the cold) ?
It is absolutely brilliantly sunny a deep blue sky dry air.
Really it's better than Switzerland. But I must get some wool-
lined over-boots. My footgear is ridiculous when I am where I was
yesterday round about the pig-sty. It is noteworthy that the
pigs have of themselves divided their sty into two: one the
clean part they keep clean and sleep in. This makes me look
at pigs with a different eye. One must be impartial, even about
them, it seems. We have two more cows about to calve in three
weeks' time. Very thrilling. Also the white goat is about to have
a little kid. I want to see it very much. They are so charming.

November 7922

... I don't know how you feel. But I still find it fearfully hard
to cope with people I do not like or who are not sympathetic. With
the others all goes well. But living here with all kinds, I am simply
appalled at my helplessness when I want to get rid of someone
or to extricate myself from a conversation, even. But I have learnt
how to do it. I have learnt that the only way is to court it, not to
avoid it to face it. Terribly difficult for me in practice. But until
I really do master this I cannot get anywhere. There always comes
the moment when I am uncovered, so zu sagen, and the other man
gets in his knock-out blow.

SI3

Letters 1922

_y j. j-ij- j-ijun^ Jxfxrxg-J- J^Jx<^J^J-^^>-*xx^^-^x*xrx^*--^-*-x<- *~^**f f*f*ffffff**(~t-1~-~>~'^'

December i6 f 1922

... It seems to me very mysterious how so many of us now-
adays refuse to be cave-dwellers any longer, but in our several
ways are trying to learn to escape. The old London life, whatever
it was but even the life we have led recently wherever we have
been, is no longer even possible to me. It is so far from me that it
seems to exist in another world. This, of course, is a wrong feeling.
For, after all, there are the seeds of what we long after in every-
body, and if one remembers that, any surroundings are ... pos-
sible, at least.

I read Youspensky's Tertium Organum the other day. For some
reason it didn't carry me away. I think it is quite interesting, but
. . . perhaps I was not in the mood for books. I am not at present,
though I know that in the future I shall want to write them more
than anything else in the world. But different books ... I con-
fess present-day literature simply nauseates me, excepting always
Hardy and the other few whose names I can't remember. But the
general trend of it seems to me quite without any value whatever.

December 20, 1922

What is the weather like with you ? It's so soft and spring-like
here that actually pink roses are out. So are the Christmas roses
under the espalier pear-trees. I love Christmas; I shall always feel
it is a holy time. I wonder if dear old Hardy will write a poem
this year.

Boxing Day, 7922

How is the old Adam revived in you, I wonder ? What aspect
has he ? There is nothing to be done when he rages except to re-
member that it's bound to be; it's the swing of the pendulum.
One's only hope is, when the bout is exhausted, to get back to that
you think you really care for, aim for, wish to live by, as soon
as possible. It's the intervals of exhaustion that seem to waste so
much energy. You see, the question is always: Who am I? and
until that is discovered I don't see how one can really direct any-
thing in oneself. Is there a Me? One must be certain of that be-

= SH =

Letters 7922

fore one has a real unshakable leg to stand on. And I don't believe
for one moment these questions can be settled by the head alone.
It is this life of the head, this intellectual life at the expense of all
the rest which has got us into this state. How can it get us out
of it? I see no hope of escape except by learning to live in our
emotional and instinctive being as well, and to balance all there.

You see, if I were allowed one single cry to God, that cry would
be: / want to be REAL. Until I am that I don't see why I shouldn't
be at the mercy of old Eve in her various manifestations for ever.
. . . At this present moment all I know really, really, is that though
one thing after another has been taken from me, I am not an-
nihilated, and that I hope more than hope believe. It is hard
to explain.

I heard from B. yesterday. She gave a very horrid picture of
the present S. and his views on life and women. I don't know how
much of it is even vaguely true, but it corresponds to S. the Ex-
hibitionist. The pity of it is life is so short, and we waste about
nine-tenths of it simply throw it away. I always feel S. refuses
to face the fact of his wastefulness. And sometimes he feels he
never will. All will pass like a dream, with mock comforts, mock
consolations. . . .

To the Countess Russell December 31, 7922

I am sending this, as you see, at the last last moment while the
old year is in the very act of turning up his toes. I wish I could
explain why I have not written to you for so long. It is not for lack
of love. But such a black fit came over me in Paris when I realised
that X-ray treatment wasn't going to do any more than it had
done beyond upsetting my heart still more that I gave up every-
thing and decided to try a new life altogether. But this decision
was immensely complicated with " personal " reasons, too. When
I came to London from Switzerland I did (Sydney was right so
far) go through that books and undergraduates call a spiritual
crisis, I suppose. For the first time in my life, everything bored me.
Everything, and worse, everybody seemed a compromise and so
flat, so dull, so mechanical. If I had been well I should have rushed
off to darkest Africa or the Indus or the Ganges or wherever it is
one rushes at those times, to try for a change of heart (One can't

= SIS -

Letters 1922

change one's heart in public) and to gain new impressions. For it
seems to me we live on new impressions really new ones.

But such grand flights being impossible I burned what boats I
had and came here where I am living with about 50-60 people,
mainly Russians. It is a fantastic existence, impossible to describe.
One might be anywhere, in Bokhara or in Tiflis or Afghanistan
(except, alas! for the climate!). But even the climate does not
seem to matter so much when one is whirled along at such a rate.
For we do most decidedly whirl. But I cannot tell you what a joy
it is to me to be in contact with living people who are strange and
quick and not ashamed to be themselves. It's a kind of supreme
airing to be among them.

But what nonsense this all sounds. That is the worst of letters;
they are fumbling things.

I haven't written a word since October and I don't mean to until
the spring. I want much more material; I am tired of my little
stories like birds bred in cages.

Goodbye, my dearest cousin. I shall never know anyone like
you; I shall remember every little thing about you for ever.

To J. M. Murry December 31, 7922

My fountain pen is mislaid, so as I am in a hurry to write please
forgive this pencil.

Would you care to come here on January 8 or 9 to stay until 14-
15 ? On the I3th our new theatre is to be opened. It will be a won-
derful experience. But I won't say too much about it. Only on the
chance that you do come I'll tell you what clothes to bring.

One sports suit with heavy shoes and stockings and a mackin-
tosh and a hat that doesn't matter. One " neat " suit with your soft
collar or whatever collar you wear and tie (you see you are my
husband and I can't help wanting you to look what shall I say ?)
slippers and so on. That's all. If you have a cardigan of course
bring it and a pair of flannel trousers in case you get soaking wet
and want a change.

I am writing to ask B. to go to Lewis and get me a pair of shoes.
Will you bring them? I may ask her to get me a jacket too. But
she will give you the parcel. Will you wire me your reply just
" yes " or " no " and the date, if " yes," of your arrival.

516 =

Letters 7922

There is a London train that reaches Paris at 4 something. You
could then come on to Fontainebleau the same day. Otherwise it's
far better to stay the night in Paris, as no cabs meet the late train.

You get out of the train at Avon and take a cab here which costs
8 francs with tip. Ring the bell at the porter's lodge and I'll open
the gate.

I hope you will decide to come, my dearest. Let me know as soon
as you can, won't you ? I hope Tchekhov's wife will be here. I have
gone back to my big lovely room, too, so we should have plenty of
space to ourselves. We can also sit and drink fyftir in the cowshed.
I can't write of other things in this letter. I hope to hear from
you soon.

517 -

Index

VOLUME TWO

Beauchamp, Sir Harold: 456, 476, 478, 483, 487, 489, 491

Blunden, Edmund: 485

Brett, Hon. Dorothy: 302, 313, 358, 368, 391 (2), 396, 400, 405,

408, 414 (2), 423, 425 (2), 428, 432, 436, 438, 445 (2), 451,

454, 456, 459 (2), 461, 464, 466, 468 (3), 474, 488, 489, 498,

502,505

Drey, 0. Raymond: 431
Fullerton, Miss: 287
Galsworthy, John: 412, 439

Gerhardi, William: 388, 417 (3), 443, 449, 453, 471, 479, 492, 499
Gibbons, Arnold: 475, 481
Hudson, Stephen: 424
Jones, Hugh: 466
Kotelians^y, S. S.: 366, 410, 413, 422, 424, 429, 434, 440, 477, 482,

486, 502, 508

Lynd, Mrs. Sylvia: 292, 364, 402, 495, 496
Morrell, Lady Ottoline: 361, 367, 384 (2), 389, 420, 430, 437, 449,

494

Moult, Thomas and Bessie: 428
Murry, J. M.: 286, 288 (3), 294 (3), 299 (2), 304 (7), 311 (2),

316 (4), 323 (12), 335 (3), 339 (5), 347 (5)> 354. 355 (2),

369 (2), 374 (5), 381 (4), 442, 485, 496, 500 (3), 503 (4),

508, 509 (7), 516
Murry, Richard: 285, 293, 297, 309 (2), 322, 352 (2), 359 (2),

362, 387, 394 (2), 399> 40i (2), 458, 467> 488

Index

Onions, Mrs. Oliver: 457

Renshaw, Mrs. Charles: 407

Rice, Anne Estelle: 304, 358, 372, 429, 436, 441, 463, 493, 497

Russell, The Countess: 409, 410, 413, 425, 458, 462, 515

ScAiff, Sydney: 347, 355, 365, 422, 432, 434 (2), 493

Schiff, Sydney and Violet: 308, 312, 314, 334, 381

ScAiff, Violet: 313, 314 (3), 404, 490

Wdpole, Hugh: 337

To .-366

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